A Waukesha company has been cited for 42 OSHA violations, 14 serious, involving the health and safety of their employees and fined $50,140. The company, Neman Painting & Sandblasting, repeatedly ignored OSHA citations and put their workers at risk of grave bodily harm.
The report identifies some egregious violations:
Eight serious safety violations involve failing to provide machine guarding, provide adequate guardrails, develop a lockout/tagout program for energy sources, train workers on lockout/tagout procedures, develop machine-specific energy control procedures, and train forklift drivers. Six serious health violations involve failing to provide a hearing conservation program, train workers on a hazard communication program, correct broken light panels on the spray booth, repair a damaged emergency eye wash station and ensure adequate air flow in the paint booth. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.
There were 4 repeat violations from a prior report that had not been remediated and 24 other non-serious violations recorded as well. OSHA rules exist to protect workers from situations like this and their success has been well established. OSHA was created in 1970 by then-President Richard Nixon (remember when Republicans actually cared about working people?) to implement the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Despite numerous complaints from industry, the act has proven wildly successful at protecting workers from workplace hazards. The act was implemented with the cooperation of labor unions and government.
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