LaGrange, Georgia agricultural equipment manufacturer exposes workers to deadly safety hazards

Employer name: Durand-Wayland Inc.

Inspection site: 101 Durand Road, LaGrange, Georgia 30241

Date citations issued: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to the employer on July 21, 2015. The inspection was initiated on Jan. 29, 2015, after the agency received a complaint.

Inspection findings: OSHA issued the employer 11 serious and 10 other safety violations. The citations were issued based on the employer's failure to: identify permit-required confined spaces; test the air quality of confined spaces before workers were allowed to enter them; develop a procedure to prevent machinery from starting up during maintenance and servicing; exposing workers to fall hazards; provide personal protective equipment to workers who were exposed to welding hazards; and for exposing workers to moving parts from a tapping and threading machine that was missing a safety guard. Other violations include the employer failing to conduct fit testing for workers that used respiratory masks and not training workers on the dangers of hexavalent chromium exposure.

Quote: "Employees at the Durand facility are being exposed to deadly confined space, amputation and fall hazards," said Christi Griffin, OSHA's director of the Atlanta-West Area Office. "The safety program needs immediate changes to address these hazards."

Proposed penalties: $44,710

The citations can be viewed at:

• http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20151287afs.pdf
• http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20151287bfs.pdf

Durand-Wayland Inc. manufactures agricultural equipment used by fruit and vegetable workers. The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, request a conference with OSHA's area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

To ask questions; obtain compliance assistance; file a complaint or report amputations, losses of an eye, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency's Atlanta-West Area Office at 678-903-7301.