"(company) continues to disregard their legal responsibility....." UPDATED

Government safety organizations are given the task to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. Here is a recent story involving the enforcement a government safety organization did:

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited an aluminium company for workplace safety and health hazards after a crane operator was injured in August 2019 at the aluminum manufacturer’s foundry. The company faces penalties in excess of $150,000 for these violations.

The employee was hospitalized after a steel plate fell from an uninspected crane onto his foot. The agency cited the company for one serious and three repeat citations for failing to report the injury to OSHA within 24 hours of the employee’s hospitalization; conduct annual crane inspections with written certification; and failing to balance and secure the load properly.

OSHA placed the company in the Severe Violator Enforcement Program for repeated safety failures.

“(Aluminium Company) continues to disregard their legal responsibility to comply with safety and health standards,” said local OSHA Area Director. “Employers have an obligation to provide a safe and healthful workplace for their workers.” 

OSHA’s Cranes and Derricks in Construction standard provides information on required crane inspections. The agency also provides compliance assistance on reporting a severe injury.

The company has 15 business days from receipt of the citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s Area Director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to help ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education, and assistance. For more information, visit https://www.osha.gov.

The mission of the Department of Labor is to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.

We pray that the injured worker recovers fully from his injuries. In our opinion, and the aluminium company may disagree we feel from the information provided by OSHA that the company failed to follow require guidelines. Normally around the globe companies have the opportunity to file formal objection on any fines. Then through established guidelines in that country argue against the fines. We would assume in this situation with the company being designated into the “Severe Violator Enforcement Program” this company will be forced to pay the fine in it’s entirely. We will ask the company in 6 months what the end result.

Next, as with many of the posts the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog editors have toured the aluminium companies. We were asked to toured this company in the past few years. We were sad to read in this story the company was cited for Cranes and Derricks in Construction standard. We specifically brought that topic up during our tour. Our observation came about when we noticed crane hook attachments that did not have inspection labels. The concern we had was how the company segregated the lifting attachments that were in need of repair and the ones that could function. At that time they could not. As we explained a few years ago what the hazard was that a worker would unknowingly take a lift attachment that was broke. We do not know if this issue contributed to the incident listed in this story or not.

Lastly, we have noticed that plant management of this company is all relatively new. All of our previous plant contacts are gone. We pray for the current plant management to successfully perform their daily jobs in accordance to all government safety standards. We assume that our observations and reports from a few years ago may not have been forwarded or even known to current management. Because of this incident we will reach out to the company this week and see if we can stop by for a visit.

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Update

We just found the following press release from the aluminium company in this story. We will comment afterwards.

(Aluminium company) wholly disagrees with the statements made by (Osha local area director) on behalf of OSHA’s (local) Area Office. The notion that (aluminium company) has disregarded its legal responsibility to comply with health and safety standards is false and misleading.

(Aluminium company) takes its obligation to provide a safe workplace for our workers very seriously. The company trains its employees to treat safety as their top priority, and has implemented safety protocols exceeding industry standards. This is supported by recent history: 2018 and 2019 were (Aluminium company name’s) safest years on record, and prior to these most recent citations, the company had been inspected by OSHA seven times over the course of nearly three years without OSHA finding any hazards or issuing any citations.

Further, in 2019, (Aluminium Company) had a total of 13 recordable injuries plant-wide, less than half the average of 28 recordable injuries at facilities sharing (aluminium company name’s) service and product scope. Far from being out of step with the “safety and health standards” cited by (local area OSHA director), (aluminium company’s) standards are outperforming those of its peers.

“OSHA’s statement was counter-productive and factually misleading,” said (aluminium company) Chief Executive Officer. "Our commitment to the health and safety goes well beyond the OSHA requirements. In just the past two years, we instituted training regimens that outstrip OSHA's standard, added frequent mandatory safety-focused huddles, and began sponsoring healthy lifestyle initiatives. The results that we have obtained demonstrate that our methods are working. OSHA’s rhetoric notwithstanding, these citations—like the citations issued to the company in early 2017 and still under contest—were improperly issued. We intend to contest these citations, and look forward to obtaining rulings by the courts in all pending OSHA matters, which we expect will set the record straight on the claims made by (local area OSHA director name).”

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