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In 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed by Congress, creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This agency seeks to ensure that working men and women are provided with a safe and healthy working environment. They do this by setting standards for safety inside workplaces nationwide. Not only does the agency establish the standards by which every business must comply, but they enforce these standards.
When companies have accidents that end with employees sick or injured, they typically must be reported to OSHA. When OSHA conducts an investigation or inspection, any violations result in a fine. The company is then given a timeframe to correct the violation.
13 WMAZ reports that the Nichiha plant in Macon, Georgia, has had several safety violations totaling more than $200,000 in fines.
The factory located in Macon, Georgia where a man died last Wednesday has had previous violations with OSHA. The Nichiha plant has paid more than $200,000 in fines. The fines were for accidents that have led to six amputations and at least one death.
Over the past 12 years, OSHA has found more than 60 violations at the plant. Inspectors working for the agency said that 40 of these violations were what they would consider “serious.”
In 2014, the plant was placed in the agency’s severe violation enforcement program. According to the agency, this program is for employers who display indifference to their legal obligations to fix violations.
The plant has had issues almost since opening. In 2008, not even a year after the plant open, a man was killed when he fell into a machine. Inspectors found more than a dozen violations after that incident.
More than a year later, those violations had not been fixed, so the plant was fined again for taking more than a year to fix infractions.
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