Fuyao Glass America, Inc., of Moraine, OH, received a proposed fine from OSHA totaling $724,380.
The company received both serious and repeat violations this year. The violations include failing to train employees on lockout/tag out and exposing employees to electrical safety hazards.
Repeat violations include the following:
- Failing to develop, document, and implement lockout/tagout procedures;
- Failing to evaluate the workplace to determine if any spaces are permit-required confined spaces or to provide training for entering confined spaces;
- Maintaining insufficient distance between an electrical panel and operators platform;
- Not labeling several containers of hazardous substances, including a Pepsi bottle, containing an unknown chemical, left on a drill press;
- Leaving unguarded nip points on belts and sprockets of a conveyor line; and
- Using extension cords in place of permanent wiring.
The electrical related serious violation involved leaving an electrical panel open while operating motors hardwired to the panel and grounding prongs broken off of electrical cords.
Repeat Offender
OSHA inspected Fuyao Glass America under the OSHA Site-Specific Targeting Program. This program directs OSHA resources to go to workplaces where a high rate of injuries and and illnesses have occurred.
OSHA has inspected Fuyao Glass twelve times in the past four years. Back in 2016, OSHA cited the company with twenty-three serious and one other-than-serious violations. At that time, OSHA proposed over $200,000 in fines. OSHA found “multiple machine safety violations which expose workers to amputation and other serious injuries, as well as a lack of personal protective equipment, electrical hazards, failing to train workers about hazardous chemicals in use and unmarked exits.”
In 2018, a worker was killed when he was crushed by a pallet of glass weighing over two thousand pounds.
Manufacturing trial runs at the Moraine, OH, plant began in late 2015. By October 2016, the company began full-scale production of their products. Safety issues were discovered soon after.
Case Not Closed Yet
The OSHA website lists this case as “pending abatement of violations”. The inspection is not considered closed at this time.
