El Paso Plastering Company Fined $99K for Fall Hazards

U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued five repeat citations to Best Plastering Contractors in El Paso, Texas, for exposing workers to fall hazards. Proposed penalties total $99,000.

OSHA’s El Paso Area Office initiated aninspection on Oct. 19, 2010, when employees were observed working on a scaffold without the use of fall protection equipment at a worksite on Carole Jeschke Court in El Paso. Best Plastering employs about 18 workers at its El Paso facility and eight of them were at this worksite.

Violations include failing to provide base plates and mud sills to prevent scaffolds from becoming unstable, a ladder for safe access to all working levels of the scaffold, training for employees who perform scaffolding work, and fall protection systems such as guardrails and/or personal fall arrest systems such as harnesses to employees working from a scaffold.

In 2009, the company was fined more than $106,000 and cited with four willful and three serious violations for exposing employees to the same safety hazards

The company has 15 business days from receipt of the citations to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director in El Paso or contest the citations and proposed penalties before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Source: OSHA