Dive Brief:
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued two repeat and eight serious safety and health violations to Park Ridge, IL-based Polo Masonry Builders Inc. after inspectors found multiple employees completing masonry work on a new, four-story residential building in Chicago — 1000 W. Montana Street — without proper fall protection.
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The contractor faces $77,606 in proposed penalties. OSHA found that the company left workers vulnerable to fall hazards through unprotected floor and wall openings, a lack of stair rails, and from improperly supported scaffold platforms. Additional impalement hazards from rebar, an unprotected mortar mixer belt and pulley drive, and a lack of proper hand and eye guards around chemicals were also noted.
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OSHA called out the company for similar infractions in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015.
Dive Insight:
The citation is one of the latest in OSHA's clampdown on fall-related breaches, coming as fall hazards remain the most common OSHA violation in construction and the leading cause of death on the job site. While falls alone have seen more than 20,000 incidents in construction over the last four years, OSHA reported in October that nearly 7,000 fall-protection violations were cited in 2016 across all occupational groups — the most of any workplace safety violation for the period.
Moving forward, OSHA is drumming up initiatives to tackle workplace safety. It reported last May that more than 500 companies were added to its Severe Violator Enforcement Program from 2010 to mid-April 2016. Of that group, six in 10 businesses were in the construction industry.
Companies brought into the program can expect to see an increase in inspections and more stringent enforcement. They are often called out in OSHA statements as a warning to other companies that aim to stay off the list of offenders.
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