The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Refton, Pa.-based Quality Stone Veneer Inc. with eight safety violations, including one willful, for scaffolding hazards found during stone installation at a Hegins, Pa., residential site.
The agency proposed $154,440 in penalties following an inspection initiated after a compliance officer passing the site observed workers on a scaffold that lacked fall protection measures. The willful violation is failing to implement a fall arrest system or provide guardrails for employees working on a scaffold more than 10 feet above the next lower level.
Three repeat violations for which Quality Stone is cited and OSHA proposes the same penalty involve a failure to: fully plank or deck platforms on all working levels of the scaffold; provide a safe means of access to and from scaffold platforms that are more than two feet above or below an access point; and, provide competent supervision and direction whenever a scaffold is erected, moved, dismantled or altered. A repeat violation indicates the employer was previously cited for the same or similar violation of a standard, regulation, rule or order at any other facility in federal enforcement states within the last five years. Similar violations were cited in 2011 at a Quality Stone site in Falling Waters, W.Va.
Four serious violations involve failing to: ensure that scaffold platforms extend at least six inches over the centerline support; brace scaffold frames and panels to secure vertical members together laterally; and, have a qualified person train workers who use scaffolds as well as those who erect, disassemble, move, operate, repair, maintain or inspect scaffolds.