2009 Top Ten Violations

Top Ten Violations - 2009

The article below from Injury Board.com, National News Desk featuring Jane Akre lists the top ten Violations for 2009 to date.

See if you, your company or anyone to whom these violations apply are guilty, you should take immediate action to correct the causes of these basic items for Safe Work on your job sites.

Top 10 Safety Violations for 2009
Posted by Chrissie Cole
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:24 PM EST
Category: In The Workplace
Tags: OSHA, Safety Violations, Workplace Safety, Construction Safety, Falls

LEARN MORE

* InjuryBoard Workplace Injury Help Center
* NSC.org
* NSC’s Safety+Health Magazine

IMAGE SOURCE: © Wikimedia Commons

The Top 10 workplace violations for 2009 has been released by the U.S. Department of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

The number of top-10 violations have increased nearly 30 percent during the same period since 2008.

Workplace Violations:

10. Machine Guarding - 2,364 violations

Any machine part, function or process that has the ability to cause injury must be safeguarded.

9. Electrical - 2,556 violations

Working with electricity can be particularly dangerous. Engineers, electricians and others work directly with electricity (i.e. circuit assemblies). While others (i.e. sales people) indirectly work with it but may also be exposed to electrical hazards.

8. Powered Industrial Trucks - 2,993 violations

Thousands of injuries occur each year in the US workplace, related to powered industrial trucks or forklifts. Employees can suffer injury when lift trucks drive off loading docks, when they are struck by a lift truck or when they fall while on elevated pallets.

7. Ladders – 3,072 violations

Stairways and ladders are a major source of injuries and fatalities among construction workers.

6. Electrical (Wiring) – 3,079 violations

See electrical above.

5. Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) – 3,321 violations

“Lockout/Tagout” refers to specific practices and procedures to safeguard employees from the unexpected startup of machinery and equipment, or the release of hazardous energy. An estimated 3 million workers service equipment and face the risk of injury if lockout/tagout is not properly implemented.

4. Respiratory Protection – 3,803 violations

Respirators protect workers from insufficient oxygen environments, harmful sprays, gases, vapors, smokes, dusts and fogs. These hazards can cause cancer and other diseases or death.

3. Hazard Communication - 6,378 violations

A written hazard communication program is an essential element for every company. Chemical importers and manufacturers are required to evaluate the hazards of the chemicals they import or produce, and prepare labels and safety data sheets to convey the hazard information to their customers.

2. Fall Protection – 6,771 violations

The majority of falls are from ladders and roofs. Protection must be provided to workers at four feet in general industry, five feet in maritime and six feet in construction.

1. Scaffolding – 9,093 violations

Scaffold accidents are most often attributed to the planking or support giving way, or from the employee slipping or being struck by a falling object.

The findings were presented this week at the NCS’s Annual Congress & Expo. A final report will be published in the December issue of the NSC’s Safety+Health Magazine. #

Read more: http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/top-10-safety-violations-for-2009-.aspx?googleid=273474#ixzz0VL2Kwn21

Confined Space Requirements

The article below shows the necessity of proper training of workers, particularly while working in confined spaces. There are several Safety Training Specialty facilities in the Mobile area that can perform on-site safety analysis, provide safety programs and training for the employees of companies such as the one in the article below.

I can see no excuse for incidents like the ones listed below.

From the Mobile Press-Register, by Connie Baggett, staff reporter, on Thursday, October 8, 2009

OSHA INVESTIGATION

Brewton Railcar Repair is Cited

Brewton – A railcar repair company could face some $360,000 in fines after a federal probe into an April incident that left four workers injured, two of them seriously.

Frit Car Inc. spokeswoman Carla Carpenter said the company addressed many of the issues immediately after the accident, and all of the problems are under review.

Carpenter said the company’s employees are its “most valuable asset,” and improvements in safety are ongoing.

A news release from the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration released this week said Frit Car failed to adequately train workers regarding confined space procedures.

The investigation found Frit Car had no training for workers or rescuers on site, as is required.
Workers who can be exposed to potentially deadly gases in confined spaces, such as railcars, are protected by strict guidelines, according to OSHA rules.

Several serious infractions were cited, as well as numerous others, such as the lack of guardrails and adequate shower facilities as well as noise exposure, bad housekeeping and bad record keeping.

The investigation followed an incident April 3 in which two employees were overcome by potentially deadly fumes inside a railcar and had to be taken by helicopter to area hospitals.

Another employee was taken to a hospital by ambulance and a fourth went home to recover.

Farm Incidents Cause High Fatalities

Farm Accidents One of the Most
Dangerous Occupations

The article below from Indiana Prairie Farmer notes that Farming is one of the most dangerous occupations, especially in incidents caused by Tractor Overturns.

Overturns of farm equipment causes many fatalities, however about any type incident that can be thought possible and many thought to be impossible, or at least impractical, causes numerous serious and dismemberment injuries than any other known occupation.

Farms utilize family members in most farm related tasks, many of whom are family members that are not allowable in off the farm industries due to age.

I posted a couple of photos of actual Farm Equipment incidents that can only show a photo of what the result of an incident, but not show where any Horse Sense should have been used to prevent these incidents.

Tractor Overturns Still Lead Farm Fatality Causes Fatalities higher again in 2008. Tom Bechman Published: Sep 24, 2009 The bad news from Bill field, Purdue University safety specialist, is that farm fatalities in Indiana crept back up again in '08, after bottoming at 8 fatalities in '06. It's the second straight year fatalities have been on the increase. Field released official numbers during a press conference at the Indiana Farm Bureau state headquarters in Indianapolis last week; Last week marked the official observance of National Farm Safety Week. And the Indiana data shows, however, it's important to practice safety every day, not just during one week of the year. National fatality statistics are based on estimates. Field says the numbers are a guess at best. The Indiana numbers, however, are firm. Field and his staff compile them based upon reports from clipping services and other information. They also cross-check them with information collected at the state level. "The latest information at the national level says that fatalities in farming are 10 times more common than in industry as a whole," says Gail Deboy, also of Purdue. "For last year the national report listed agriculture as the number one most dangerous occupation in America, ahead of mining and construction." The best news, perhaps, is that the 30-year trend is still toward far fewer farm fatalities than in the past, especially amongst children. "In 1977 a third of all deaths were children, many of them young children. Riding with dad on the tractor and becoming involved in some sort of accident was a major cause. While there was no particular pattern to what caused an increase in fatalities last year, Field says tractor overturns remain the single most deadly action on the farm. About 25% of the deaths were due to overturns. Deboy says many times these were people riding older tractors that did not have Rollover Protective Structures (ROPS) installed. Combine extra riders on tractors with tractor overturns, other tractor-related deaths and entanglements, and it accounts for about 75% of last year's farm fatalities, Field says. Grain bin entrapments get a lot of publicity because they nearly always result in death, but the number of people who die in grain bins each year is still far fewer than the number who die in tractor or implement-related mishaps. Tractor roadway crash fatalities are also included in the newly-released data, as long as a tractor or farm implement was involved, Field notes. There was a trend toward increasing numbers of farmers dieing in these types of accidents, but it didn't really show up last year, he notes. Indiana Farm Bureau stepped to the plate and campaigned hard to raise awareness for farmers traveling on roadways with equipment, and also started campaigns to educate the public about the hazards of traveling rule roads. A video was produced with Purdue, that has been widely shown to all types of audiences. Through August of this year, the unofficial farm fatality total is 10 in Indiana. Deboy hope that number stays lower than the '08 number, That means people must be very attentive during harvest, An unusually high number of fatalities occurred in the fall last year.

Get Away From Unloading/Loading

Stay Well Away From Truck
Loading/Unloading

The article below from 6 WLNS.com points out some of the dangers that occur during loading and unloading, specifically tractor/trailer loads.

However, it holds true for drivers and any other persons in a Non-essential position to clear themselves away from loading and unloading situations whether it be on a construction job site or, in fact at any location.

Many is the time that I've seen drivers stand beside their rigs while their truck is being loaded by heavy equipment such as dirt/rock hauling operations. Several times I've had to seek medical attention to one of these persons. I've also seen drivers hop up on their rigs and loosen the binding chains without assuring that the loads are secured from falling on the person releasing the bindings. Trained professional riggers should be the ones to handle these operations. The driver can go back and stow their rigging and bindins after the load is removed.

Failure to adhere to this simple and safe practice procedure just plain DOES NOT adhere to Horse Sense methods of Safety.

Man Crushed In Construction Accident

A freak accident took the life of a truck driver. Livingston County officials say falling concrete killed a truck driver in Howell Township on East M-59 near Grand River. Construction of a concrete wall came to a crashing halt. That crash killed Richard Browand, a 61-year-old truck driver for Mack Transport. Livingston County Sheriff Bob Bezotte calls it a tragic accident.

Bob Bezotte, Livingston County Sheriff: "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time when they were unloading the cement blocks. He was on the opposite side of the truck and when they took it off, the truck shifted."

A 3,500 pound slab of concrete fell off the truck and crushed him.

Bob Bezotte: "It crushed him in the chest area. He was alive at the scene, and then we got him to the hospital, the internal bleeding and the crush took his life."

Bezotte says construction accidents happen from time to time, but the saddest thing about this one is that it was avoidable.

Bob Bezotte: "When you're unloading a semi, ya know, people standing around a semi need to be back and the truck drivers and anyone else who's not involved with the unloading of the trucks."

It's advice that's too late for Browand. Bezotte says this accident should serve as a wakeup call for all construction workers to put safety first. The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating.

Million Dollar + Fines

Million Dollar Plus Fines by OSHA

The items below were emailed to me by a friend and fellow Safety Professional. It shows that OSHA CAN issue high enough fines to get some of the larger corporatons' attention.

Nutrition Products Co. Facing $1M Plus in OSHA Fines. The fines came after the Wisconsin plant was inspected as a result of a complaint alleging numerous hazards. Among other violations, OSHA issued willful citations for failure to comply with confined space and lockout/tagout regulations. Chem Company Cited Heavily for Exposing Employees to Poison. The St. Louis–based company was inspected after OSHA learned that employees had been admitted to local hospitals after being contaminated with an unknown powder. Investigators determined that employees were exposed to paranitroaniline (PNA), a chemical that reduces the ability of the blood to transport oxygen. OSHA issued 21 willful citations, 20 of which were cited on a per-instance basis and assessed fines totaling $1.2 million. Poultry Company Pleads Guilty in Employee Exposure Case. Following the death of an employee at an Arkansas plant, the company was charged with criminal violations and ordered by a federal court to pay a $500,000 penalty. Sugar Company Warned Long Before Accident Occurred. The Georgia refinery was cited and fined following an accident associated with sugar dust that killed 14 people. OSHA assessed fines of $8.7 million, the third largest in OSHA history.

Prevention of Falls on Construction Sites

Much More Related to Falls

The article below, posted in the Daily Community News and Construction Record points out several results of Fall Protection on construction sites. However, there are several things that can be critical and probably are a major cause of injuries when workers seem to be PROBABLY a major cause of injuries.

The Number One item I'd like to point out is the PROPER TRAINING in the use of body harnesses. On most jobsites that I've been on, the contractor hands their workers working more than 6 feet above ground or floor levels "a harness" to use while working at those levels.

I have found that VERY FEW workers are trained in the ways to inspect all the components, how to assure that there ia a proper fit of the harness how to properly adjust the harness to fit that individual's body, what to do if the worker does fall, what is the site Rescue Plan if someone falls, how long the worker can remain hanging in a harness before passing out, and many more critical items that is a must know related to fall protection.

Folks, this is 'CRITICAL PERSONAL PROTECTION" that ALL workers using harnesses MUST be aware of and PROPERLY trained in their use and being recovered in case of an incident. This is just plain HORSE SENSE.

Accidents spur Pennsylvania fall safety push

PITTSBURGH

Following four recent fatal construction fall accidents in a week in southwestern Pennsylvania, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has called on construction companies to ensure employees working above six feet have the proper equipment to protect themselves from falls on the job.

The first of the fatal falls happened on Friday, Aug. 15 and they ranged in heights from two to 13 storeys.

“Falls are the leading cause of fatalities in the construction industry,” said Robert Szymanski, director of the Pittsburgh OSHA office, in a statement.

“These recent accidents are tragic reminders of the dangers posed to workers when adequate protection is not provided.”

There are a number of ways to protect workers from falls including guardrail systems, safety net systems and personal fall arrest systems, including properly anchored body harnesses and lanyards, as well as through the use of safe work practices and training. OSHA conducted almost 39,000 inspections and found nearly 88,000 violations of its standards and regulations in fiscal year 2008.

-DCN News Services

Fatal Falls

OSHA and Fall Protection

In the article below from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, by Kaitlynn Riely, regarding fall protection from falling off buildings and/or scaffolding, an Area Director for OSHA states that contractors should reassess their fall protection methods following four recent fatalities in southwestern Pennsylvania.

This article addresses the one relatively small area of this country compared to the Nationwide incidents that prove fatal to workers that are not properly equipped and properly trained in the safe, Horse Sense ways to use this type lifesaving equipment.

In many of these fatal incidents, it has been proved that contractors are not training their supervisors in the use of these preventive measures, therefore they are not passing down these measures to their workers that are put in to perilous situations.

I feel that there are five words that could be used to correct this: TRAINING, ATTITUDE, TRAINING, ATTITUDE AND TRAINING WITH ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENTS to the program.

Four deaths shed light on falling hazards

OSHA director says construction sites should reassess prevention measures

Thursday, August 20, 2009

By Kaitlynn Riely, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Construction sites should reassess their fall prevention methods following the four recent fatalities resulting from people falling off buildings or scaffolding in southwestern Pennsylvania, a director for the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration said yesterday.

"One worker fall accident is unacceptable, but four falls within a few days' time is completely incomprehensible," said Robert Szymanski, the area director for OSHA's Pittsburgh office.

The most recent accident was Tuesday, when Roy Pfoertner, 53, of New Kensington, was working on the roof of the Pennsylvanian apartment building Downtown. He fell 13 stories to the sidewalk. He was part of a crew doing masonry work on the roof for the contractor, Mariani and Richards.

Three more construction-related deaths from falling have occurred within the past week. Carl Beck, 29, of Butler, fell 42 feet from a roof in North Strabane, Washington County, on Saturday morning. On Friday morning, Gary E. Dwire, 56, fell from a house in New Kensington, and Michael Grinder, 40, fell two stories at a site in Monessen.

Historically, fatalities in the workplace have been on the decline in recent years, and Mr. Szymanski said last week his office was projecting that they might achieve a single-digit record low for fatalities for the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. But the four fatalities since Friday bring the total to 11 workplace fatalities for this year.

In the construction industry nationally, falls account for nearly 50 percent of all fatalities, Mr. Szymanski said.

"If you eliminate fall hazards in construction, you would eliminate 50 percent of fatalities right off the bat," he said.

Of course, the goal is to have zero fatalities in the workplace every year, he said.

To achieve this goal, OSHA mandates safety requirements that protect against hazards like falling. Employers are required to protect their workers from falls when they are working six feet or higher above an adjacent surface by one of three methods -- a guardrail system, a personal fall arrest system like a body harness and line or a safety net.

There is an entire book of OSHA standards related to construction, but Mr. Szymanski emphasized these three methods of fall protection as imperative.

"I'm asking that employers take time to pause and assess their work sites immediately for appropriate fall protection systems," he said.

OSHA conducts regular inspections of workplaces to verify they are complying with the standards. The agency investigates all workplace deaths, and have started investigations for the four fatalities, including the one that occurred Tuesday.

If violations of OSHA standards are identified through the investigations, penalties may be assessed according to the circumstances, Mr. Szymanski said. These can include fines and recommendations to minimize risk.

Kaitlynn Riely can be reached at kriely@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1478.

First published on August 20, 2009 at 12:31 am

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09232/992116-455.stm#ixzz0OidnT4Uu

Too Many Scaffold Colapses

How Many More Deaths Due To
Improper Scaffolding????

The article below from the New York Times by Anahad O'Conner and Colin Moynihan relates to another Fatality to a worker on a stage scaffold. Proper Safety equipment either was not available or the workers on these scaffolds were not properly trained in Fall Protection when working from scaffolding.

In this case, the workers on the stage scaffold should have been anchored so that if and when the stage fell, the workers would have been saved by Personal Protection Fall Equipment.

There is no excuse for situations like and the contractors should have to pay LARGE fines for the lack of proper safety equipment and safe use training for each jobsite or each time the scaffold is relocated.

The use of a Job Safety Analysis should have been completed and reviewed and signed off by the workers before any work was started. This applies to work EACH DAY or when the scaffolding is relocated.

Come on People. Lets wake up and quit killing workers working from scaffolding. Use some Horse Sense and quit doing it the Donkey Way and protect your employees.

Worker Falls Four Stories to His Death When a Scaffold Collapses in Brooklyn

Two workers left dangling when a scaffold gave way were pulled into a fourth-floor window by firefighters. The accident happened at the Ansonia on 12th Street in Park Slope.

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR and COLIN MOYNIHAN

Published: August 18, 2009

A 42-year-old construction worker at a luxury apartment building in Brooklyn plunged four stories to his death Tuesday evening when he stepped onto a scaffold that suddenly gave way, the authorities and witnesses said. Two co-workers tethered to harnesses were left dangling in the air, and were rescued by firefighters who arrived moments later as anxious neighbors witnessed the drama.

Skip to next paragraph

Henryk Siebor

“It was this terrible, ripping, tearing sound,” said Ilene Rosen, who was down the block when the scaffold gave way.

Ms. Rosen and other area residents said they looked up to see the two workers who had been on the scaffold now dangling in the air, and a fourth worker standing on a second scaffold.

“He’s dead, he’s dead,” one of the workers shouted of the man below.

The cause was being investigated, the authorities said, but it appeared that both mechanical failure and human error played some role in the collapse, which occurred about 5:30 p.m. at the Ansonia, a former clock factory that was converted to residential apartments over the years by various developers. The accident took place at one of the buildings, a six-story prewar at 438 12th Street in Park Slope.

Workers had been replacing bricks on the building’s facade for the past three months, and residents who saw them there on an almost daily basis said they virtually always appeared to be wearing safety harnesses. Investigators said Tuesday night that the worker who died — Henryk Siebor of 100 Diamond Street in Brooklyn — was wearing his harness at the time of the accident, but it may not have been secured, as required by state law.

Witnesses said that four men had been working throughout the day on two separate scaffolds placed side by side — two men to a scaffold — on the fifth floor of the building. They were nearing the end of the day’s work when the men on one scaffold told their superior, Mr. Siebor, on the adjacent scaffold that there was a problem with the way the rig was “tied off,” said Robert D. LiMandri, the commissioner of the Buildings Department.

“They were concerned,” he said. “They looked to their colleague who was senior on the job, and asked him to come over and investigate. He did that.”

But as Mr. Siebor stepped onto the scaffold, one of the lines holding it to the building gave way, sending the scaffold swinging against the building as he plunged to his death, landing on a first-floor terrace below.

Secured by their harnesses, the two men dangling in the air clung to the building for several minutes as firefighters from a department about a block away raced to the building.

When firefighters arrived, they smashed through a fourth-floor apartment door to reach the two men. A fire truck on the ground erected a ladder to help in the rescue, and the two men were pulled through a window. The fourth man, who was on the scaffold that remained intact, was helped off by other firefighters.

Donna Mitchell, who works in a building across the street, said she was outside when she heard a commotion and looked up.

“I saw fire trucks, and I see these two construction workers hanging on by the harness,” she said. “They still had their harness attached to them and they were hanging on.”

Ms. Mitchell said that to get to the men, firefighters smashed through a children’s safety guard and yelled for the men to reach for the window.

“The guys were close enough to the window, so they all reached out their hands,” she said. “It was like four firemen in the window, and one held him and the rest inside supported him and pulled him in.”

“It really looked scary,” she added.

Mr. Siebor came to New York four years ago from Rzeszow, a city of about 170,000 in southeastern Poland, and would regularly send money to his family back home, said a relative, who spoke Polish through a neighbor who interpreted. The relative, who would not give her name, said Mr. Siebor was married with three children: 20-year-old and 16-year-old daughters and a son, Robert, 16, who was visiting New York and apparently was at the Ansonia when his father died.

According to the Buildings Department’s online database, the Ansonia building received permits in March for masonry reconstruction and in April for the erection of a heavy-duty sidewalk shed. A spokeswoman from the Buildings Department said late Tuesday night that a stop-work order had been issued for the site, and that citations for violations were expected pending the outcome of the investigation.

There was no response to calls for comment made to the company responsible for the scaffold, Nova Restoration, which has offices in Brooklyn.

The Ansonia complex was once one of the largest clock factories in the world before it was converted to residential apartments, some selling for more than a million dollars.

Mr. LiMandri of the Buildings Department said that the agency would continue investigating why one of the lines that secured the scaffold gave way.

“We have two people who are lucky,” he said. “They are lucky to be alive.”

Reporting was contributed by Sewell Chan, Kareem Fahim, Christine Hauser, Jennifer 8. Lee and James Oberman.

Call Before Digging

I received the following as an email from a friend. It really makes you think before you undertake a job whether it be in an inner city or out in rural roads!

CALL BEFORE YOU DIG!!!

`You may or may not know about the law in the USA requiring you call for utility locating before you do any excavation. The pictures below are a result of a farmer using a post hole digger without calling for "locates," and he hit an underground, high-pressure cross-country gas pipe.

They never did find the guy……….took out 2 homes.

Hope it makes you think before you dig.....

Oregon's OSHA Has The Right Idea

Oregon's OSHA Looks at Bigger Fines

The article below from Daily Journal of Commerce by Justin Carinci, brings up two of my Pet Peeves regarding incentives toward constructions companies that are performing Unsafe Operations on their jobsites that cause fatalities and/or serious and willful safety violations.

These two items that I have touted are the ATTITUDE of, especially the larger, more affluent companies that they have so much money that they don't care to pay a "slap on the wrist" monetary fine to willful or fatal incidents on their jobsites. The other is the fact the these fines are not financially significient to "Get their Attention."

The company official in this article seems to have this "I'm a big boy and I have plenty of money to pay for incidents and continue to keep my bigger than thou and too rich for a little $65,000 fine to make me Safety Conscious on my jobsites." These are the ones that should have their willful and fatal fines multiplied by at least 10 times the $65,000. A few these should make significient Attitude Adjustments to these type companies.

I have corresponded with Mr. Wood of the Oregon OSHA in the past and am in full agreement with him that SOMETHING needs to be done about these type companies. I fully agree that the 2 or 3 small companies would be immediately put out of business for a fine of $65,000. However, does that tiny company get a free ride and stay in business if they have one fatal incident and kills 1/3 of their employees?

There are a large number of approaches to these delimas that a Oregon OSHA will have to delve into. I just want to encourage Mr. Wood and his group to continue to iron out some of these approaches and come up with solutions that can, not only make Oregon OSHA's jobsites a safer place to work.

OSHA eyes bigger fines for safety violations

POSTED: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 04:06 PM CDT
BY: Justin Carinci
Tags: Oregon OSHA, Turner Construction

Dan Carter/DJC

Oregon OSHA officials are considering raising the fines for serious workplace safety violations and making bigger employers pay more. In the construction industry, however, the largest general contractors say bigger fines won’t make them any safer.

The commitment to safety should come from the companies themselves, said Dan Kavanaugh, vice president and general manager with Turner Construction Co.

“From our philosophy, money is not the motivator,” he said “A fine doesn’t mean anything to us.”

Right now, Oregon OSHA calculates fines based on two factors: the probability that an accident will occur and the severity of that accident. The most severe accident – one that causes a death – carries a maximum fine of $5,000.

That isn’t much of a financial hit for huge companies, said Michael Wood, Oregon OSHA administrator. Wood has the authority, at his discretion, to add up to $2,000 to each penalty in egregious cases.

Wood said he’s considering issuing fines on a sliding scale, based on the company’s size, and setting the new cap at $7,000, the highest Oregon OSHA can go under state law. “It’s certainly one of the things we’re looking at,” he said.

Smaller companies now can get a break of up to 30 percent on fines, Wood said. But that’s a smaller break than other states offer, and the issue probably will come up when Oregon OSHA starts talking, later this month, about updating its rules.

Safety violations made news last week, when Oregon OSHA announced penalties totaling $90,000 stemming from a February accident in which a welder was killed in a Boardman potato processing plant owned by ConAgra Foods. ConAgra received 13 fines totaling $65,000; NW Metal Fabricators, the company performing the repairs at the plant, received five fines totaling $25,000.

Wood acknowledged that a $65,000 fine wouldn’t have a great effect on a giant company such as ConAgra, which had $12.7 billion in sales for the fiscal year that ended in May. But he said Oregon OSHA’s main role is to push employers to keep workplaces safe, not to penalize them.

“It isn’t about an appropriate punishment,” Wood said. “This is about being a motivation to the employers.
“What motivates Fred’s Roofing, (which) has two employees, is going to be different than what motivates ConAgra.”

That’s especially true in construction, a field that has grown safer and more professional thanks in part to high-profile efforts by the largest companies. These companies generally don’t flout safety laws, Kavanaugh said.

An “absolutely, unequivocally fundamental commitment” to creating the safest environment on job sites is what drives Turner, he said. Raising fines wouldn’t change that.

Higher fines could be big hits for small and mid-sized construction companies, but they wouldn’t affect the biggest players, said Dan Johnson, vice president of operations for Skanska USA.

“If they raised fines, would that become a motivation?” Johnson said. “I’m thinking ‘no.’ ”

Johnson has called for the entire industry to take a zero-tolerance approach to job-site accidents. Oregon OSHA shouldn’t need to get involved at all, he said.

“Our mission is never to be fined by OSHA,” Johnson said. “To receive an OSHA citation, that is a strike against everything we stand for in safety.”

Johnson said he sees more problems at companies much smaller than Skanska. “It’s the house builders, the small contractors – you can see from the street the goofy things they’re doing.”

For those contractors, a bigger fine might make a difference.

“At the lower level of construction, they’ll get (the job) done and try to survive,” Johnson said. “If being fined is their only motivation (to be safer), maybe that’s enough.”