New York Legal Authority
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) job is to help keep workers safe. OSHA regulation covers a broad scope of work activities and the agency has created numerous programs to deal with specific issues it encounters related to workplace safety.
A jobsite in midtown Manhattan was cited for safety violations that were serious enough to place the contractor in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP). This program, as its name implies, was created to deal with recalcitrant employers that place workers at risk by engaging in “willful, repeat or failure-to-abate violations.” These employers have been found in violations of OSHAs safety regulations with prior incidents and continue to create conditions that could lead to a worker injury or fatality in a construction accident.
In this case, the contractor violated numerous regulations involving fall protection and received $249,920 in fines. Fall protection is vitally important for workers on construction sites such as this one in Manhattan, where a 23-story hotel was being built. Three other contractors also received OSHA citations for safety violations.
The violations on the site included failure to provide and ensure the use of fall protection, including guardrails or individual fall-arrest systems for the workers on scaffolding. The scaffolds also exhibited other safety failings, such as lack of safe access, insufficient planking and the scaffold was not secured to prevent it from tipping.
The OSHA investigation of this New York construction site was triggered by a complaint regarding the fall protection violations. It is important for workers to understand safety regulations so they can report violations to OSHA or New York City authorities. If you are on a site and suspect something is not right, contact OSHA. As they say, the life you save could be your own.
Source: Forconstructionpros.com, “Four Contractors Cited For Safety Violations at NY Jobsite,” September 26, 2013
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Manhattan construction site fined $272,720 for safety violations
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