Now, for the Rest of the Story

As Paul Harvey used to say on his many radio broadcasts, “Now for the Rest of the Story.” A few months back, I wrote about my team of experts visiting a client site and my team being exposed to some very serious hazards. One of my team members almost fell 30 feet because this client never warned my team member that the walking surface area he was accessing was covered with cooking oil.

Then, when the team tried to bring these issues up to senior management, the whole team was exposed to a workplace violence attack by one of this client’s corporate safety & health managers. Finally, as we tried to work these issues up the chain of command, including all the way up to the President & CEO, we were issued Cease & Desist notices from this company’s attorneys. Still trying to help our client protect their workers, we brought these issues up to the International offices of the client, and we faced the same resistance.

Nobody seemed to care about worker safety. What is a person to do knowing that this company has a high rate of amputations, management and employees were not following proper lockout & tagout procedures, and management was not following their own safety & health policies and procedures?

Doing What a Responsible Consultant Should Do

Well, we did what every good consultant should do: protect the workers. We turned all our files over to the Federal OSHA Region Administrator and his Peoria OSHA office. We filed a formal complaint and requested that they go into that facility and protect those workers.

At first and up to this writing, the Federal OSHA Region Five (5) OSHA Regional Administrator has never commented or given us an answer to our many emails.

At first, the Peoria OSHA office wanted to send this employer a letter listing a few of the many hazards while leaving the employees exposed to many other very serious hazards. My team of experts identified over 600 serious machine hazards and other serious safety & health hazards in our report. We wrote to OSHA and said that it would not be acceptable.

OSHA’s Response

OSHA finally went into the site and only cited this client a little over $20,735.00, which will be lowered if the client contests the citations. As for the workplace violence issue, OSHA did not cite the workplace violence attack since they stated that the client had a formal written program, and they conducted an internal investigation, and OSHA stated that he was not killed. I guess you must be killed before federal OSHA will cite for workplace violence.

To view what federal OSHA did to this client, go to this link:
https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=1281086.015

This information is posted on the OSHA website, which is in the public domain.

Comparing OSHA Enforcement Actions

Does Federal OSHA treat the plastic industry or other companies in this manner? I do not think so. Here are two companies that were cited according to OSHA for not following their regulations. These three companies were in OSHA Region 5, and the citations were issued by the same OSHA Regional Administrator.

U.S. Department of Labor Cites Ohio Plastics Company, Proposes $261,454 in Penalties for Workplace Safety Hazards
https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/04202018

U.S. Department of Labor Cites Kraft Heinz Food After Employee Injured by Machine, Proposes Penalties
https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/03162018-0

U.S. Department of Labor and Ohio Auto Parts Manufacturer Reach Settlement Agreement, Including $1 Million Penalty
https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/region5/03162018

If you have never visited the federal OSHA website to watch what these people do and how they operate, you should. Here is the link to the OSHA news site:
https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/enforcement

As a safety consultant, it is always important to keep informed about what OSHA is doing. Most of the time, OSHA finds companies in compliance with their standards, even though they should not be overlooking hazards in the workplace.

Closing

In closing, I want you all to know that this information was found in the public domain. If you have any questions, as always, please feel free to contact me.