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The Department of Labor has is in the midst of a legal battle with Donald Pottern, of the company Crown Furniture of West Springfield, for firing a worker who filed a safety complaint with the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

In a statement made by OSHA official Robert Hooper, Hooper said “Employees have a right to file a complaint with OSHA without fear of discharge or other forms of retaliation from their employer. Such retaliation can coerce workers into silence, preventing them from reporting or raising concerns about conditions that could injure, sicken or kill them.”

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, such employer retaliation warrants authority to the organization to file suit against employers that take action against employees.

According to OSHA documents and a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Springfield, the employee had contacted OSHA on May 9, 2011, alleging safety and health hazards in the basement of Crown Furniture, including the presence of asbestos, mold and rodents. On May 11, Pottern apparently fired the employee after he questioned him as to why he filed the complaint. The now former employee filed a whistleblower complaint with OSHA, which investigated and found legitimate merit to the complaint.

According to OSHA, the lawsuit seeks a judgment affirming that Pottern discharged the employee in retaliation for filing an OSHA complaint and permanently prohibits him from illegally retaliating against employees in the future. Additionally, the lawsuit seeks payment of more than $20,000 in lost wages (plus interest), as well as payment of compensatory and/or punitive damages and posting of a nondiscrimination notice at the workplace.
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Woburn-based 3-D printing company, Powderpart Inc., was cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for one willful and nine serious violations of workplace safety standards. According to OSHA documents, the inspection followed an explosion and fire on Nov. 5, 2013, which inflicted third-degree burns on a company employee.

The Andover Area Office discovered that the company had failed to prevent and protect its employees from the fire and explosion hazards of reactive, combustible* metal powders, such as titanium and aluminum alloys, which are used in the company’s three-dimensional printing process.

“The fire and explosion hazards when working with titanium and aluminum are established, particularly when the materials are in powder form,” Jeffrey Erskine, OSHA’s area director for Middlesex and Essex counties said in a statement. “Just as it’s easier to start a campfire with kindling than with logs, it’s easier for a metal fire to start when you’re working with metal powder that is as fine as confectioner’s sugar.”

According to OSHA’s report, Powderpart had failed to dispose of known sources of potential ignition and follow pertinent instructions from equipment manufacturers, and did not alert the Woburn Fire Department to the workplace presence of hazardous materials. In addition Powderpart had an employee workstation and flammable powders next to an area with explosion potential.
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The Massachusetts Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the Lee-based contracting company Fairview Contractors Inc. after an investigation revealed that it had failed to provide protection for a worker who had fallen to his death in November of 2013.

The report, which was issued only recently this month, stated that the company did not provide any fall protection, which could have prevented the incident. The 51-year-old fell nearly 20 feet while he was performing roofing work on a condominium in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

“This was a needless and avoidable loss of a worker’s life. While guardrails and fall arrest systems were present at this work site, they were not used and were thus useless,” Mary Hoye, OSHA’s area director for central and western Massachusetts said in a statement. “Fatalities such as this will stop only when employers supply and ensure the use of effective and legally required fall protection safeguards on all job sites at all times.”

OSHA discovered that the four scaffolds on which the employees were working on lacked any fall-preventive guardrails as well as fall arrest systems. An additional fall hazard was presented from the lack of guardrails from the walkboards that the workers were using to move from one scaffold to the other. The report also found that Fairview had failed to train workers on how to identify hazards as well as how to work safely on scaffolding, roofs and ladders. Fairview was ultimately cited with two violations, including willful lack of fall protection and five serious violations for the remaining hazards. The company now faces fines of $119,350.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this worker’s fall was one of seven fatal falls to have occurred in the Massachusetts construction industry since 2012.
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Following the horrific death of a factory employee at the Taunton hummus factory, Tribe Mediterranean Food, OSHA officials and factory administrators are coming under public scrutiny.

Daniel Collazo, 28, was killed in December 2011 when he became caught in the rotating screws that blend the hummus. Collazo attempted to free himself from the slowly-winding 9-inch blades, but his arms and part of his head became crushed in the process. In a desperate attempt to save the man, Collazo’s co-workers cut the machine’s power and tried to untangle Collazo from the machine. Tragically though, Collazo died in an ambulance en route to an area hospital.

Reflecting on the incident, both OSHA and public officials are saying that had the plant followed a standard set of safety procedures, specifically the safety practice “lock out/tag out,” which requires employees to be trained to cut power to machinery prior to cleaning, the entire incident and Collazo’s death could have been prevented. In fact, two years before Collazo’s death, the company had been fined by OSHA for failing to follow the safety procedure at another of its New England food processing plants. Company records indicated that Tribe’s own consultant had made note warning other administrators that failing to train workers the procedure created “an extreme safety risk” with “the probability that a fatality could occur is likely within a year’s timeframe,” according to the Boston Globe.

Following Collazo’s death, Tribe was issued a $540,000 fine by OSHA-one of the largest fines in New England in nearly a decade according to the Globe. Tribe was also issued 18 violations-imposing the most serious level of penalties because the company had “willfully ignored” three industry safety standards, according to the records. Those standards included “lock out/tag out,” which requires employers to adopt procedures and conduct training to ensure that employees power down major machinery during cleaning and maintenance.

OSHA’s report concluded that Tribe “was aware of deficiencies with its lock out/tag out program for almost two years and made a conscious decision not to abate those deficiencies” because fixing those issues was too expensive. Managers of Tribe’s owner, Tivall, and its Israeli parent, OSEM, toured the Taunton plant several times a year to prioritize projects, including safety measures, according to OSHA reports.
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The family of Alejandro Collazo can now begin the healing process after a painful six years mourning the loss of their loved one. Collazo, a husband and father to three children, ages 20, 19 and 13 was an employee of Chicago’s Commonwealth Edison Company, which handles utilities for the Windy City. He was working as a cable splicer in a privately-owned manhole at the time of the accident.

Alejandro Collazo was working in the manhole around 2:00am when an electrical explosion occurred inside the cramped subterranean space in which he was working. The explosion was so powerful that flames were seen climbing as high as 12 feet in the air. According to the National Trial Lawyers, Collazo was attempting to “remove a de-energized cable line that had faulted three days earlier… [when] a cable splice on an adjacent 12,000 volt line arced and exploded.”
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According to a study by the National Employment Law project, the number of workers that fall under the “temp” category in the U.S. rose 41% between 2008 and 2012. It appears that temporary staffing agencies are not just providing temporary office clerks and secretaries to employers, but they also they are helping to staff other types of jobs in other industries, such as janitorial services and fast food.

Temp workers are convenient for large companies. Employers can employ temps quickly, and benefits and unemployment insurance don’t have to be provided. However, some critics believe temp workers are at a disadvantage in that they are “disposable,” which leaves them with little recourse should an employer mistreat them or violate the law. Temp workers may not even know that they have rights.

Last year, The Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health advocated or the passing of the Temporary Workers Right to Know Law. The law deals with serious labor abuses, including the failure to pay temp workers.

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A dramatic scene unfolded in Boston’s quaint North End neighborhood on Friday morning. Multiple media outlets are reporting that a heavy-duty crane gave way and tipped over on Commercial Street around 11:30 am. The accident caused a chaotic scene as pedestrians scattered to get out of the way of the falling crane. Photos of the scene show part of the crane resting on a now-crushed pickup truck while the long arm of the machine extends into the baseball field in Puopolo Park across the street. The end of the crane created a foot-deep hole right on the third base line.

Two people, including the crane operator, were taken to area hospitals with unspecified injuries. Pictures from the scene show one woman being taken to an ambulance on a backboard with a neck brace. There are conflicting reports in regards to her injuries. Some media outlets are reporting that she was walking near the crane at the time of the accident while others suggest she may have been hit by the crushed fence around the baseball field.
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After completing an initial investigation, officials believe a clamp that was holding a structure by which eight women were dangling by their hair failed, plunging the performers to the floor 40 feet below and crushing a dancer who was positioned underneath. The frightening accident occurred at yesterdays’ Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus’ Legends show in Providence, RI. Nine performers suffered very serious injuries ranging from compound fractures to skull and back injuries.

The acrobats were performing their “Human Chandelier” stunt in which eight dancers hang from a metal structured 40 feet in the air by just their hair. The accident happened right at the beginning of the stunt, just after the curtain was let down, revealing the women dangling in position. Video from the scene shows the heavy metal structure simply drop to the floor below with an audible bang, crushing a dancer who was performing below.
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According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 3 million non-fatal workplace injuries were reported in 2012, the most recent year in which data is available. That means nearly 3 million injured workers could have been in need of worker’s compensation. An injury sustained on the job can easily cause more than physical pain. If the injury is serious enough, the victim may need to miss work, or leave the job altogether. If you were hurt on the job, it is advised that you speak with a Boston Worker’s Compensation Attorney.

Worker’s compensation was established to guarantee certain benefits to those who are hurt on the job, depending on the severity of the injury and how it affects the everyday life of the victim. According to Massachusetts law, workers’ compensation benefits generally include coverage of medical bills, disability payments, 60% of your average income (more if the victim is disabled as a result of the injury), and other forms of compensation specific to the type and scope of the injury suffered. The system is supposed to allow employees to heal while still supporting their families, but sometimes the system does not follow through.
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According to “Dying for Work,” a report prepared by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, 48 workers in this state were killed on the job in 2013. The report was released yesterday right before Workers Memorial Day today. The day is designated for remembering workers that were injured, disabled, or killed in a work accident.

The report names fall accidents as one of the most common causes of Massachusetts worker accident deaths-9 workers died in work falls last year. Another nine worker also died in accidents involving equipment and machinery. Five workers were killed in motor vehicle/truck crash.

The report notes that construction, firefighting, and commercial fishing are industries with the most dangerous jobs. Also, occupation-related illnesses cause d480 worker fatalities in Massachusetts last year alone. Workplace violence was the case of five worker fatalities, including the death a teacher.

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