Georgia metal fabrication installer fails to protect workers from dangerous falls

Employer name: Wayne Ansley, doing business as Ansley Metal Fabrication and Repair, Cairo, Georgia

Inspection site: 615 West 3rd Street, Donalsonville, Georgia 39845

Date citations issued: The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to the employer on July 27, 2015. At the time of the inspection, workers were installing metal roofing panels on a new structure.

Investigation findings: OSHA cited the employer for one willful and one serious safety violation. The willful citation was issued for exposing workers to fall hazards up to 30 feet by not ensuring employees were properly utilizing fall protection equipment. The serious violations involves failing to provide fall protection training for employees.

Proposed penalties: $53,900

Quote: "Ansley management admitted they know the fall protection requirements and had all the equipment for employees to perform their duties safely. However, the work site supervisor chose not to enforce the standard, leaving workers unprotected from a deadly fall," said Robert Vazzi, director of OSHA's Savannah Area Office.

The citations can be viewed at: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20151445fs.pdf

Ansley Metal Fabrication and Repair, a structural steel and metal fabrication installer, 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 Savannah Area Office at 912-652-4393.