Top 10 OSHA Citations of 2016: A Starting Point for Workplace Safety

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Today’s blog post comes from the U.S. Labor Department’s blog at blog.dol.gov and was written by the director of enforcement programs at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The article below is a good big-picture reminder of workplace hazards that are documented “safety and health violations” through OSHA. There are some important quotes in the blog post, but instead of choosing a couple, you are encouraged to read and think about the entire relatively short article. A special focus should be to consider the top 10 citations list and see if you are exposed to any of these hazards at your job. Or if you’re in a position to influence others within the workplace, I would encourage you to make sure your co-workers know about whatever safety efforts you have in place to avoid and prevent at-work injuries so you don’t have your business’s citation on the list in the future.

If you have concerns about workplace safety at your job, OSHA’s website has a lot of informative resources. If you or a loved one have been hurt on the job, please contact an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer for advice and help.

a worker climbs a piece of scaffolding wearing proper fall protection
a worker climbs a piece of scaffolding wearing proper fall protection

Every October, the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration releases a preliminary list of the 10 most frequently cited safety and health violations for the fiscal year, compiled from nearly 32,000 inspections of workplaces by federal OSHA staff.

One remarkable thing about the list is that it rarely changes. Year after year, our inspectors see thousands of the same on-the-job hazards, any one of which could result in a fatality or severe injury.

More than 4,500 workers are killed on the job every year, and approximately 3 million are injured, despite the fact that by law, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their workers. If all employers simply corrected the top 10 hazards, we are confident the number of deaths, amputations and hospitalizations would drastically decline.

Consider this list a starting point for workplace safety:

  1. Fall protection
  2. Hazard communication
  3. Scaffolds
  4. Respiratory protection
  5. Lockout/tagout
  6. Powered industrial trucks
  7. Ladders
  8. Machine guarding
  9. Electrical wiring
  10. Electrical, general requirements

It’s no coincidence that falls are among the leading causes of worker deaths, particularly in construction, and our top 10 list features lack of fall protection as well as ladder and scaffold safety issues. We know how to protect workers from falls, and have an ongoing campaign to inform employers and workers about…

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The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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