The 4 Most Common OSHA Violations
June 19, 2024
The 4 Most Common OSHA Violations
When it comes to industrial safety, compliance is essential. Failing to meet the rules and regulations set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) can subject your business to serious fines and citations and your employees to unsafe working conditions. Each year, OSHA provides a list of the most common violations they received. And more often than not, the same few violations make this infamous list. To keep you informed and protected, we’ve compiled the four most common offenders—along with some cost-effective strategies to prevent these violations in your workplace.
1. Fall Protection
Consistently landing in the top spot for violations is fall protection. As an employer, it’s critical to have a fall protection plan in place in order to prevent injury completely—or respond to accidents as quickly as possible. Training, implementation of a plan, and safety equipment is crucial for companies to ensure the safety of their employees. Guardrail systems, safety net systems, or personal fall arrest systems are commonly cited in the standards for fall protection (1926.501).
Fall protection products from Stronghold Safety include:
2. Respiratory Protection
Breathing in contaminated air from harmful dusts, fog, fumes, gases, and more can cause potential infection or disease in people who work in facilities where the contaminantes are produced. The respiratory protection standard (1910.134) is there to ensure employees are properly protected from breathing in these contaminants. To be fully compliant with this standard, an employer must provide a respirator that’s suitable for the intended purpose. This solution will provide protection from breathing in these harmful particles.
3. Machinery and Machine Guarding
At Stronghold Safety Engineering, we know that machine guarding is critical for the safety of employees—and to ensure efficient workflows. As a common OSHA violation, it’s important to recognize the risks associated with machines that aren’t equipped with safeguards. In the general requirements for machines standards (1910.212), OSHA requires all machines to have one or more methods of guarding in order to protect the operator and surrounding employees. Hefty fines and citations are typical consequences for not following these machine standards.
OSHA Machine Guarding Checklist
Machine safety is extremely important for employees in many industries. To ensure that you have the proper equipment in place, we’ve created a machine guarding checklist. This list will provide guidance on which machines and parts need physical safeguarding in your facilities.
Point of operation
Ingoing nip points
Rotating parts
Flying chips and sparks
Portable power tools
Barrels, containers, and drums
Exposure of blades
Anchoring fixed machinery
Along with this checklist, a machine guarding assessment from Stronghold Safety can ensure that you are OSHA compliant and help determine any risks you may not be aware of. Check out our comprehensive selection of physical safeguarding products as well to make sure that you are well protected.
4. Eye and Face Protection
It’s vital to ensure your employees are properly equipped with eye and face protection. As another common OSHA violation, employers need to be enforcing these protections as strictly as possible. The eye and face protection standard (1926.102) states that each affected employee must be equipped with appropriate eye or face protection when exposed to eye or face hazards, such as flying particles, molten metal, and liquid chemicals.
Eye and face safety equipment must:
Provide adequate protection
Be reasonably comfortable
Shall fit snugly and have no interference with the movements of the wearer
Be easily cleanable and disinfectable
Durable
Protect Your Employees with Stronghold Safety Engineering
Being OSHA compliant is critical—not only to avoid unwanted fees and citations, but to protect the health and productivity of your employees. A valuable first step in creating a safer workplace is by conducting a machine guarding assessment. Stronghold Safety can help you identify risks, design a custom safety plan, and implement solutions that will keep you OSHA compliant—all while protecting your employees and delivering higher ROI. Don’t wait until someone gets seriously injured or you’ve received a citation; stay proactive and contact Stronghold Safety today.