OSHA issues willful, serious citations for MillerCoors Fort Worth brewery

Employer name: MillerCoors Fort Worth brewery

Inspection site: 7001 South Freeway, Fort Worth, Texas 76134

Citations issued: June 17, 2016

Investigation findings: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration began an inspection Jan. 5, 2016, after reports of an amputation of an employee’s finger at the MillerCoors Fort Worth brewery’s maintenance shop. Investigators issued citations for one willful and one serious violation. The agency issued a willful citation when investigators discovered that lathes in the maintenance shop lacked required safety guards that could have prevented the amputation. A serious citation was issued because those same lathes did not have emergency stops installed. 

Proposed Penalties: $77,000

Quote: “MillerCoors completely disregarded the safety of the workers who operate machinery to maintain the equipment in the facility,” said Jack A. Rector, OSHA’s Area Director in Fort Worth. “This employer owes it to the many, many consumers who purchase the Miller Brewery’s products to do what was necessary to protect the employees who work hard to produce it from workplace hazards.”

Link to the citations: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/MillerCoorsBrewery_1116028.pdf

Information: MillerCoors Brewery employs about 700 employees at the Fort Worth brewery and about 40,000 throughout the nation. The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director, or contest the citations and penalties before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint or report 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 Fort Worth Area Office at 817-581-7303.