Boston Employer—Involved in 2021 Double Fatality—Cited Again, Added to Severe Violator Enforcement Program
OSHA has cited a Boston employer who just six months ago was involved in a workplace incident that claimed the lives of two employees.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has recently cited a Boston employer for failing to provide employees with essential and required safeguards at an East Boston residential construction site. OSHA has cited the employer with four willful and three series violations and one other series violation with penalties totaling $654,777.
This employer is not unfamiliar with OSHA and their violations, as less than six months ago the employer was cited for an incident at a downtown Boston worksite that led to the deaths of two workers. Back in August 2021, OSHA proposed over $1 million in penalties and 28 violations following the deaths of two construction workers in a trench on High Street. Those citations and penalties are currently being contested.
“Less than six months after being cited for egregious willful violations in the deaths of two employees in an excavation, this serial violator again exposed employees to potentially fatal cave-in and struck-by hazards,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Galen Blanton in Boston said in a press release. “While [the employer] may reincorporate and operate under a variety of names, what is consistent is his pattern of willfully violating safety and health requirements, ignoring OSHA citations and penalties and persistently placing employees in harm’s way.”
Under various names the employer and his companies have an extensive history of OSHA trenching and excavation violations dating back almost 20 years. Six previous inspections of his companies resulted in the issuance of 14 willful repeat and serious violations, with $81,242 in penalties, $73,542 of which are unpaid and have been referred to debt collection.
This employer meets the requirements for the Severe Violator Enforcement Program. The Program, “concentrates resources on inspecting employers who have demonstrated indifference to their OSH Act obligations by willful, repeated, or failure-to-abate violations. This Instruction replaces OSHA's Enhanced Enforcement Program (EEP),” according to OSHA.