WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today awarded approximately $1.9 million in grants to 14 nonprofits nationwide to fund education and training programs to help workers and employers recognize infectious disease hazards – including coronavirus – and identify preventive measures for a safe workplace.

LEMONT, IL – AB & R Repair of Lemont faces $326K in OSHA penalties 48-year-old worker entered a tanker-trailer in Lemont to inspect it as part of an annual U.S. Department of Transportation requirement and was overcome from exposure to bleach and chlorine gas. The worker was found unconscious in the tanker-trailer, he later died of his injuries.

WASHINGTON – Construction workers often face some of their industry’s most serious dangers – such as falls from elevation, being struck or crushed by equipment or other objects, and electrocution – but recent studies suggest another occupational concern is lurking silently at U.S. worksites: worker suicides.

CLAYTON, OH – A Clayton company was cited for exposing workers to fires and failing to train them on initial stage fire identification and use of fire extinguishers after federal safety investigators received a referral from a local fire department that responded to 13 fires at the auto parts manufacturer in a two-year period.

CHICAGO – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration found Wells Fargo violated the whistleblower protection provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for improperly terminating a Chicago area-based senior manager in the company’s commercial banking segment.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – A worker performing maintenance inside a cement mixer at a Colorado Springs concrete manufacturing company narrowly escaped fatal injuries when a co-worker turned the machine on. A U.S. Department of Labor investigation determined the company’s failure to comply with federal workplace safety standards nearly cost the worker their life.

KILLEEN, TX – While media organizations depend on their reporters’ abilities to expose issues of public concern, a journalist at the Killeen Daily Herald found themselves out of a job when they complained to the newspaper’s management that they believed fleas had infested their workplace, leaving them with bug bites.

ATLANTA – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration signed a strategic partnership with Balfour Beatty Construction to promote worker safety and health during construction of the 1018 West Peachtree Project in Atlanta.

SUAMICO, WI – On a chilly March morning, a federal workplace safety inspector observed five roofers atop a Wrightstown residence, working at heights up to 23 feet without required fall protection. The inspector later found the fall protection equipment piled in a bucket on the ground next to a work truck.   

DUETTE, FL – A federal workplace safety investigation has found a 35-year-old farmworker died from heat illness on a Duette farm in the early evening of April 5, 2022. It was only his second day on the job.

AKRON, OH – A Dundee contractor with a long history of federal workplace safety violations has added an additional $228,126 in fines to $108,318 in unpaid penalties with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for again exposing workers to potential deadly fall hazards, this time at an Akron job site.

SABINE PASS, TX – A federal workplace investigation has found two companies’ failures to follow required safety standards endangered the lives of nine workers who found themselves trapped – nearly 30 stories high – atop a burning jack-up drilling platform decommissioned in the Anchorage Basin near a Sabine Pass shipyard.

AUGUSTA, ME – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Maine Department of Labor Workplace Safety and Health Division’s SafetyWorks! outreach program, and the Construction Safety Alliance of Maine signed an alliance to promote workplace safety and health and educate construction employers and workers in the state on safety and health hazards.

TAMPA, FL – A federal court has ordered Tampa Electric Co. to implement a safety compliance plan audited by an independent third party, pay a $500,000 penalty and be subject to 36 months of probation after Tampa Electric pleaded guilty to willfully violating an OSHA standard, which caused five worker fatalities in 2017 at the Big Bend River Station electrical power plant in Apollo Beach. The Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida prosecuted the case.

NORTH BARRINGTON, IL – A Roselle contractor with a long history of federal workplace safety violations who currently owes more than $390,000 in penalties, added an additional $303,105 in proposed fines for once again exposing workers to potential deadly fall hazards at a North Barrington job site.

TARRYTOWN, NY – A Nanuet roofing and siding contractor with a significant history of safety violations and penalties now faces an additional $1,343,363 in penalties after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated another fatal fall by a company employee, the second in three years.

TRENTON– To continue to promote workplace safety and health in New Jersey workplaces, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration today joined with the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the New Jersey State Industrial Safety Committee in renewing an alliance to help protect the Garden State’s workers.

MECHANICSBURG, PA – A Maryland residential framing contractor – cited for 136 willful, repeat, serious and other violations in 20 workplace safety inspections since 2020 – continues to expose its workers to falls from elevation, the construction industry’s most lethal hazard, inspectors with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently found.

PHILADELPHIA – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently launched a regional initiative in three Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia in an effort to protect workers and reduce injuries and illnesses in the warehousing, storage and distribution yards’ industries.

PHOENIX – A 30-year-old worker succumbed to injuries after an incident at the Rawhide Western Town and Steakhouse at the Gila River Indian Community near Chandler. A federal investigation determined the fatality could have been prevented if the employer had implemented required safety measures.