Working safe or working fast? For one Connecticut contractor, the answer turned out to be an expensive one. Last week, OSHA issued a proposed fine of 180K for several willful safety violations to a CT contractor who had severe inadequacies in securing their job site. A job site that was 43 feet above a river! Several of the safety measures that were missing include: hard hats, life jackets, a rescue boat, guards on machinery, ladders of insufficient height, and an unsatisfactory fall protection system in place. Luckily, nothing went wrong, and OSHA was on the scene before anything did. But what the contractor was cited most for was working without fall protection over a work site with severe potential for a drowning. Again, nothing went wrong, and luckily no one was hurt, but in the insurance game, prevention is key, and this company did very little to prevent their employees from being severely injured in myriad ways. Aside from the steep OSHA penalties, this company will have a heck of a time when their insurance comes up for renewal. And I doubt, the CT Department of Transportation will consider them for any more state funded bridge work since this incident didn’t make them look very good either.
So, how would an OSHA fine accept someones insurance? The final decision will come from which ever insurance company’s underwriter is tasked with the assignment, but their decision will be biased by:
- Lack of a safety culture. Even though nothing happened this time, the outcome is grave if a laborer falls 4 stories into a river, in the month of March. That won’t be a “band aid and back to work”. That will be a “call the next of kin”.
- Disregard for the safety of their employees. If on one job site, on one day, OSHA found this many willful violations, it would be hard to convince an underwriter that this was a freak occurrence.
- Lack of personal protective equipment. Just the fact that no one even had hard hats on makes one think that the corporate structure of this contractor has no regard for safety or OSHA regulations, and maybe this is why they were able to bid this job for the price they did.
The one part for me that is a little hazy still, is how this company was able to bid on the work in the first place. Many states require contractors who want to bid jobs for them to have an experience MOD factor lower than 1.00. It would surprise me to find out what this contractor’s MOD is, because with this many willful violations at one time, it would be pure luck for them to have a good safety record. The lack of machine guards alone should account for at least a few workers with 9 fingers. The company that committed the offenses hasn’t issued any public statements yet, and it is not my place to be pointing fingers at what they could/should have done to prevent the fines that OSHA is imposing, but for any contractors who think they can cut corners with safety and federal OSHA requirements to bid jobs at lower prices, this should be your wake up call.
