OSHA finds J.M. Smucker’s facility lacks energy control procedures in federal investigation of employee’s amputation injury

Employer name: The J.M. Smucker Company
1 Strawberry Lane
Orrville, Ohio

Citations issued: Oct. 21, 2016

Investigation findings: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued one repeated and one serious safety violation to The J.M. Smucker Company, after the agency’s investigated an incident in which a 39-year-old maintenance employee suffered the amputation of the tip of his right index finger on July 29, 2016 at its Orrville facility.

OSHA found the company failed to develop procedures to control gravity as an energy source. The employee was cleaning a valve body when it fell into the valve housing amputating the tip of his finger. The agency cited the company for a similar violation in November of 2013, at the same facility.

Unrelated to the incident, agency inspectors found that the company also exposed workers to struck-by hazards from an overhead obstruction above a staircase in the facility.

Quote: “All too often, OSHA finds employers are complacent with machine safety features and conduct maintenance and other tasks without taking all steps to prevent machinery from movement,” said Howard Eberts, area director of OSHA’s Cleveland office. “The J.M. Smucker Company should re-evaluate its machine safety programs and procedures to ensure they are effective.”

Proposed Penalties: $60,571.

View Citations here.

Background: Based in Orrville, The J. M. Smucker Company is a leading marketer and manufacturer of consumer food and beverage products and pet food and pet snacks in North America.

To ask questions, obtain compliance assistance, file a complaint, or report amputations, eye loss, 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 Cleveland Area Office at 216-447-4194.