Baron Environmental Associates has recently completed an assessment of large OSHA penalties ($40,000 +) in New Jersey and the surrounding states (NJ, NY, CT, PA, and DE) for the first six months of 2019. Many trends from 2018 are continuing with inspections resulting from fatality/catastrophe events, complaints and process safety management (PSM) occurring with the most frequency and planned inspections outside of PSM occurring extremely infrequently. All data presented below refers only to the inspections in the region above with penalties greater than $40,000 in general industry (construction and public workers are excluded).
The most frequent reason for inspection was a referral at 10 inspections, followed by an employee complaint at 9 inspections, fatality/catastrophe at 4 inspections, and planned activities at 2 inspections.
The most common major violations that were recorded were machine guarding and fall protection at five inspections each, followed by process safety management at four inspections, exit routes, electrical, LOTO, general duty clause and powered industrial trucks at three inspections. Toxics, respirators, and bloodborne pathogens were found in two inspections. Nine additional programs were cited in a single inspection. Machine guarding, LOTO and electrical violations were the most common in similar inspections in 2018.
A breakdown of the inspections is shown in the tables below:
Nationally, the five states with the highest number of inspections resulting in penalties of over $40,000 are California with 48, Ohio with 37, Texas with 36, and NJ and FL with 17 each.
If your facility has any concerns related to these safety and health programs, please contact Suzanne Custons at (908) 508-9000 or suzanne.custons@baronenv.com.