NEW GLARUS, Wis. – After five employees became ill from carbon monoxide exposure as they renovated a New Glarus nursing home, federal safety inspectors responding to the scene found their employer also exposed the workers to asbestos hazards.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Had proper precautions been taken, a 34-year-old tree trimmer would not have been fatally electrocuted when an aluminum pole saw made contact with overhead power lines, an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has found.

Anthony Robert Donahue was strapped to a tree approximately 18 feet in the air and working at a private residence on Bay View Drive in Fort Lauderdale on April 25, 2016, when the incident occurred.

Employer name: Panama City Framing LLC

Inspection site: 3750 Cedar Park Lane
Panama City, Florida 32404

Employer name: Quick Carpentry Inc.
4501 Bleigh Avenue, Apt. A
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Inspection site: 258 Gordon Road, Lot 8
Robbinsville, New Jersey

Citations issued: On Sept. 26, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the company citations for two repeat and seven serious violations.

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. – A Pennsylvania masonry company terminated a plant manager – less than two weeks after it hired him – after the manager repeatedly reported air quality and other safety and health hazards to upper management at the company's Middletown plant in 2014. 

Employer Name: PPG Industries
3150 Pete Manena Road
Westlake, Louisiana

Citations Issued: Oct. 11, 2016

Employer name: Home Live Roofing LLC
936 East Calloway Roadbr> Marietta, Georgia

Inspection site:2101-2104 Jefferson on-the-Creek
Warminster, Pennsylvania

Citations issued: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the company one willful, two repeat and one serious safety violations on Sept. 29, 2016.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. ‒ Five seconds is all it takes for flowing grain to engulf and trap a worker. In 60 seconds, the worker is submerged and is in serious danger of death by suffocation. More than half of all workers engulfed in grain die this way. Many others suffer permanent disability.

CHICAGO – A federal investigation has determined that an overstressed 40-ton beam fell and caused the death of a 47-year-old laborer doing demolition of Chicago’s Interstate 90 and Touhy Road overpass in April.

MOBILE, Ala. – The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that its lawsuit against Lear Corp., doing business as Renosol Seating LLC, and three of its managers in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama has been resolved. The company manufactures foam seating for the automotive industry. The department and the company have filed a joint motion with the court setting forth the resolution and asking the court to dismiss the case in light of it.

OAK PARK, Ill. – Less than three weeks after being cited for exposing workers to unsafe trenches, federal investigators saw a Chicago plumbing contractor exposing the same four-man crew to trenching hazards as they worked on sewer and water utilities at two locations in Oak Park on consecutive days in March 2016.

ATLANTA – Florida’s emergency workers, employers and the public at-large face potentially serious hazards as they begin to recover from Hurricane Matthew, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is urging vigilance during the cleanup.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – A Syracuse roofing contractor with a history of safety violations has again exposed its employees to potentially fatal fall hazards at one of its worksites, this time in Camillus.

Employer name: Allstate Can Corp.
One Wood Hollow Road
Parsippany, New Jersey

Inspection site: One Wood Hollow Road
Parsippany, New Jersey

Citations issued: On Sept. 16, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the company citations for one willful violation and four serious violations.

Employer name: Aluminum Shapes LLC
900 River Road
Pennsauken, New Jersey

Citations issued: On Sept. 23, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to Aluminum Shapes for one serious and two repeat violations.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Feeling the symptoms of heat-related illness, a 24-year-old U.S. Postal Service mail carrier asked her supervisor to be relieved after walking about half-way through her 11-mile delivery route on a hot June day in Des Moines when temperatures exceeded 93 degrees. Investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration later learned the woman’s supervisor told her initially to continue walking her route despite feeling ill.

CHICAGO ‒ Thirty-six Illinois workers have died on the job since Jan. 1, 2016. An average of one life lost each week in the Prairie State.

The tragedies that befell two men are sobering reminders of preventable workplace dangers:

Employer name: Columbia Recycling Corp.

Inspection site: 2410 S. Dixie Highway,Dalton, Georgia 30720

Citations issued: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to Columbia Recycling Corp. for five repeated, three serious and one other-than-serious safety and health violations. Acting on a complaint, the agency initiated the inspection on April 26, 2016.

BOISE, Idaho – A Boise excavation contractor could have prevented the deaths of two workers and serious injuries suffered by a third after a trench collapse if the company had not allowed federal safety standards to be ignored at a Northwest Boise work site in May.

Employer name: Frame Q LLC
315 7th St.
Fairview, New Jersey

Inspection site: 119 Abbott Ave.
Palisades Park, New Jersey

Citations issued: On Sept. 28, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to Frame Q LLC for two repeat safety violations.