OSHA watch

Interim enforcement guidance on silica standard for construction

The interim enforcement guidance for the Respirable Crystalline Silica in Construction Standard (1926.1153), which is now enforced in full, was issued Oct. 19 in a memorandum to regional administrators. The guidance is intended to help gauge whether employers meet various requirements, including those for inspections and avoiding citations, but does not provide guidance on all of the standard's provisions. A final compliance directive is in the review process.

Information on silica hazards and related standards are now in one location on the website.

New fact sheets: Zika virus and evaluation of Shipyard Competent Person programs

The fact sheet on the Zika virus details how laboratory exposures occur, often through bodily fluids, and how to prevent exposures.

The Shipyard Competent Person programs fact sheet offers guidance on determining the necessary qualifications of experts who must be employed to determine whether a confined space is safe for workers and prescribe protective measures.

Pennsylvania construction firms join Strategic Partnership program

Shoemaker-Skanska Construction and the Philadelphia Regional Building Trades Council entered into a strategic partnership to protect approximately 300 workers during renovation and construction of a shopping mall complex in Philadelphia. P.J. Dick Incorporated entered into a strategic partnership to protect approximately 200 workers during the construction of an insurance office building in Erie.

Enforcement notes

California

• HBuilt Inc. in Oakland received two serious citations and $80,000 in penalties for failing to train workers on potential hazards and safe operation of machines, ensure proper machine guarding, and provide workers with gloves designed to prevent cuts.

Georgia

• Structural Subcontractors Service LLC, a Birmingham-based structural framing company working on a job site in Georgia, faces penalties of $102,669 for exposing workers to fall hazards. Inspectors found workers wearing fall protection harnesses, but were not tied off to prevent a fall. The inspection was initiated as part of a regional emphasis program.

Massachusetts

• Citations and proposed penalties against Dudley-based Shield Packaging Co. Inc. and two staffing agencies following a May 2016 incident in which an employee was injected with a flammable propellant gas have been settled. The packaging company will pay $150,000, about 50% of the original levy, and the two staffing agencies, Leominster-based ASI Staffing Group Corp. and Worcester-based Southern Mass Staffing, will pay $12,471 and $12,222 respectively. The company also agreed to document that all hazards are corrected, retain a professional engineer to approve the design and installation of a safety interlock on the machine that injured the worker, retain a qualified safety consultant to perform a comprehensive inspection of the plant, and develop a workplace safety and health program, while the staffing agencies also agreed to implement specific comprehensive safety and health measures.

Michigan

• Ten citations and $102,600 in penalties were issued to SET Enterprises Inc. in New Boston for exposing workers to amputation hazards. Inspectors determined that the company failed to train workers on potential hazards and safe operation of machines, ensure proper machine guarding, and provide workers with gloves designed to prevent cuts.

New York

• Acme Parts Inc. has agreed to pay $40,000 in penalties after high lead levels were found in the manufacturing facility as well as hire a qualified lead hazards and abatement consultant to evaluate the facility and to recommend improved practices.
• An administrative law judge affirmed citations issued against Webster-based LM Sanderson Construction Inc. whose employees were photographed working on a site without fall protection and assessed total penalties of $5,600. The employer failed to meet its burden in contending the violation was the result of unpreventable employee misconduct or that literal compliance with the standard's requirement was infeasible under the circumstances.

Pennsylvania

• Pittsburgh contractor, Ski Masonry LLC, is facing $201,354 in proposed penalties for exposing workers to fall and electrical hazards after an employee was fatally electrocuted.
• In response to a complaint, the owner of a New Jersey construction company has been cited for exposing workers to alleged hazards at a Philadelphia job site, including allowing employees to work on a scaffold that was too close to power lines, failure to train on scaffold hazards, not providing hard hats and failing to develop and implement an accident-prevention program. The owner, Vyacheslav Leshko, faces $191,215 in proposed penalties.