Employer name: United States Postal Service

Investigation site: Main Post Office, 1165 2nd Ave., Des Moines, Iowa

Date investigation initiated and what prompted inspection: On Oct. 2, 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration initiated an inspection of the main post office in Des Moines after receiving an employee complaint alleging that unsafe forklifts were being used at the facility.

ROCKFORD, Ill. — Once again, workers were exposed to dangerous amputation hazards during maintenance and while processing scrap metal because safety mechanisms were not in place at Behr Iron & Steel facilities in Rockford and Peoria. The September 2014 inspections by the U.S.

Employer name: Bruegger's Enterprises, Inc., doing business as Bruegger's Bagels

Inspection site: 2000 Cecil Ashburn Drive SE, Huntsville, Alabama 35802

LA BELLE, Mo. — A 35-year-old worker doing maintenance on an overhead door's pulleys died after he fell off a 12-foot ladder onto a concrete floor at a dairy farm in La Belle, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has concluded. An OSHA investigation of the Sept. 1, 2014, incident identified eight serious safety violations, including failing to de-energize equipment, confined space and chemical hazards.

Employer name: Hope Elephants

Inspection site: 49 Hatchet Rd., Hope, Maine 04847

Date of incident: James Laurita, co-founder, curator and elephant manager of the Hope Elephant Refuge was found dead in the refuge's compound on Sept. 9, 2014, with a crushed chest.

Niece Products of Kansas faces more than $60K in fines for endangering workers

Roofing contractor flouts prior court order; continues to put workers at risk of falls

BOSTON — A Maine roofing contractor's continued refusal to obey a federal court order to correct safety hazards and pay more than $400,000 in fines could send him to jail.

Employer name: Hi Temp Northlake LLC, operating as Bluewater Thermal Solutions in Northlake, Illinois, a subsidiary of Bluewater Thermal Solutions of Greenville, South Carolina. The company specializes in heat treating powder metal parts.

Inspection site: Bluewater Thermal Solutions, 75 E. Lake St. Northlake, Illinois

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A worker alleging the existence of asbestos, mold and hygiene hazards led to an inspection of an Advance Auto Parts store in Kansas City, where the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration found one repeated and 10 serious safety and health violations with fines of $60,000.

Employer name: Franco Roofing, Inc., roof construction contractor, Yonkers, N.Y.

Inspection site: 58 Edgemont Road, Katonah, N.Y. 10536

Date inspection initiated: OSHA's Tarrytown Area Office began an inspection on Oct. 20, 2014, when OSHA inspectors who were driving by the worksite observed employees working without fall protection.

BRIDGETON, Mo. — A 58-year-old maintenance worker was killed after he was pinned between a scrap metal table and a railing at Hussmann Corp.'s Bridgeton facility, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration found. OSHA said the company failed to prevent the table from lowering unintentionally. As a result, Hussmann received three willful and 12 serious safety violations after the Sept. 6, 2014, incident.

Employer name and location: Framing, siding, and roofing contractor K&F Construction Inc., P.O. Box 6013, Martinsburg, W. Va. 25402

Inspection site: Suncrest Village, 1000 Suncrest Village, Morgantown, W. Va. 26505, where K&F Construction employees performed roofing operations as part of the construction of three-story townhomes.

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, Ill. — Two temporary workers injured in an explosion at Polychem Services Inc., were unable to return to work for months after being hospitalized with first and second-degree burns after their work site was ignited by a gas-powered forklift.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Since 2013, 294 workers have been killed by falls: a deadly fact that one roofing contractor appears willing to ignore as it was found putting the safety of its employees at risk by U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health inspectors once again.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — If his employer had protected him properly as he worked in a 12-foot-deep trench to connect a new home's plumbing to the main sewer line, 31-year-old LeDonte McCruter could have returned home at day's end to spend time with the young nieces and nephews he adored. Instead, a kind man known for his quick smile died at a Birmingham work site when the trench around him collapsed and buried him alive on Aug. 31, 2014. Rescue workers tried for more than six hours to save McCruter, a day laborer.

DENVER — The death of a 52-year-old man, killed when a scrap metal baler started while he worked inside, could have been averted if his employer, Atlas Metal and Iron Corp., had made sure the machine was shut down properly, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has determined. After a September 2014 inspection that followed the incident, OSHA investigators found 12 safety violations at the Denver-based scrap-processing facility.

Employer name: Menards Inc., 4777 Menard Drive, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Investigation site: Menards Inc., operating as Midwest Manufacturing, 4801 N. 264th Street, Valley, Nebraska

On Sept. 29, 2014, the U. S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Omaha Area Office initiated a fatality inspection after a 54-year-old forklift operator was fatally injured while moving trusses in a warehouse owned by home improvement store, Menards Inc.

SEATTLE — When an employee raises concerns about the dangers of asbestos in a school, you would expect them to be commended and not terminated. After questioning whether the timeline of a construction project at a school in Idaho Falls School District 91 allowed for safe removal of asbestos, a district employee was out of a job. Now, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has stepped in to protect that worker's rights.

PHOENIX — An employee who raised concerns that a truck driver employed by Core-Mark International of Phoenix had exceeded the legally allowed maximum number of driving hours must be reinstated immediately and paid more than $230,000 in back wages and compensatory damages, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has ordered.

Who: Aurora Office of the Occupational Safety and Health AdministrationSauk Valley Community College

What: OSHA Safety Day Training Conference

When: Tuesday, March 10, 7:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. CST

Where: Sauk Valley Community College 173 Illinois Route 2 Dixon, IL