Shocking Confirmation of Employer Failures to Protect Workers From Accidents on the Job
At this year’s annual Safety Congress and Expo hosted by Illinois’ celebrated National Safety Council (NSC), OSHA administrator Eric Harbin took the stage to announce this year’s OSHA Top 10 list of the safety regulations most often violated in this country during the current fiscal year.
The NSC safety conference is being held this year in New Orleans, Louisiana from October 20 – 26, 2023. It is recognized as the “world’s largest annual gathering of safety professionals,” and many safety agencies and those advocating for worker victims and their families were able to hear this new warning first-hand, prior to the formal OSHA announcement next month.
Read, “OSHA Reveals Top 10 Safety Violations at NSC Congress & Expo,” released by the NSC on October 24, 2023.
From NSC President Lorraine Martin:
“Although incredible advancements are made in safety each year, we continue to see many of the same types of violations appear on OSHA’s Top 10 list. As a safety community, we must come together to acknowledge these persistent trends and identify solutions to better protect workers.”
The results announced at the NSC Safety Congress were shocking, and yet not surprising for those who have faced the aftermath of severe or deadly work accidents alongside worker-victims and their loved ones in their pursuit of justice.
However, perhaps the most heart wrenching and horrific reality of the latest OSHA Top Ten List is the fact that for the past thirteen (13) years in a row, employers have ignored the most basic safety regulation to protect against fall accidents.
The number one most-often violated federal safety regulation remains Fall Protection – General Requirements.
Falls are extremely serious risks facing workers in a number of industries. The types of bodily harm from a fall on a worksite can result in various life-altering or fatal injuries, such as:
- Traumatic head injuries
- Spinal cord injuries
- Internal organ damage including internal bleeding and bruising
- Loss of use or limb (amputation)
- Death.
For more, read our earlier discussions in: Fighting Fatal Falls on the Job: OSHA’s First National Emphasis Program; and Fatal Falls on the Job and the Employers Failure to Protect Worker From Fall Risk.
To realize that even after the warning that this fall safety regulation had been dismissed by so many for a dozen years, only to have it remain at the top of the most-violated list in 2023, is reprehensible. This important safety requirement did not even fall in ranking over the past year.
Workers must be alert and aware to this obvious disrespect that rises almost to the level of public insult on the part of our nation’s industrial employers.
For more, read: Fall Protection on the Job Remains Top OSHA Safety Violation for 12th Straight Year.
The 2023 OSHA Top Ten List of Safety Violations
The complete list of safety violations most often ignored by employers in this country in the fiscal year 2023 are the following:
- Fall Protection – General Requirements (29 CFR §1926.501)
- Hazard Communication (29 CFR §1910.1200)
- Ladders (29 CFR §1926.1053)
- Scaffolding (29 CFR §1926.451)
- Powered Industrial Trucks (29 CFR §1910.178)
- Lockout/Tagout (29 CFR §1910.147)
- Respiratory Protection (29 CFR §1910.134)
- Fall Protection – Training Requirements (29 CFR §1926.503)
- Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection ( 29 CFR §1926.102)
- Machine Guarding (29 CFR §1910.212).
Little Change Over the Past Two Years in Employer Respect for Worker Safety Laws
Compare this 2023 list with the past two year’s OSHA Top Ten Lists of Safety Regulation Violations, shown below.
Review of the past three years reporting of the top federal safety regulation violations comes with serious concerns for anyone who cares about workers being safe on the job. Each year, the same basic safety duties are not followed. For the most part, the violations move up and down the list slightly, but the dangers remain the same.
The same safety duties for workers are being breached year after year after year.
2022 OSHA Top Ten List
The prior year’s OSHA Top Ten list was also announced at the annual NSC Safety Congress:
- Fall Protection – General Requirements (29 CFR §1926.501)
- Hazard Communication (29 CFR §1910.1200)
- Respiratory Protection (29 CFR §1910.134)
- Ladders (29 CFR §1926.1053
- Scaffolding (29 CFR §1926.451)
- Lockout/Tagout (29 CFR §1910.147)
- Powered Industrial Trucks (29 CFR §1910.178)
- Fall Protection – Training Requirements (29 CFR §1926.503)
- Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection (29 CFR §1926.102)
- Machine Guarding (29 CFR §1910.212).
2021 OSHA Top Ten List
The 2021 OSHA Top Ten list was as follows for the earlier fiscal year (September 30, 2020, to October 1, 2021):
- Fall Protection – General Requirements (29 C.F.R. §1926.501);
- Respiratory Protection (29 C.F.R. §1910.134);
- Ladders (29 C.F.R. §1926.1053);
- Scaffolding (29 C.F.R. §1926.451);
- Hazard Communication (29 C.F.R. §1910.1200);
- Lockout/Tagout (29 C.F.R. §1910.147);
- Fall Protection – Training Requirements (29 C.F.R. §1926.503);
- Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection (29 C.F.R. §1926.102);
- Powered Industrial Trucks (29 C.F.R. §1910.178); and
- Machine Guarding (29 C.F.R. §1910.212).
Another major concern for safety agencies and those advocating for worker victims and their loved ones: the number of violations in some instances actually increased in 2023.
Specifically, the number of violations of the number one regulation on the list (fall protection – general requirements) saw violations rise from 5260 to 7271. That is almost a forty percent jump (38%) in a year’s time – and after the outcry over this fall safeguard being the top violation for a dozen years in a row!
Warning to All Workers in Illinois and Indiana: Be Alert to Safety Dangers on Your Work Site
For all our industrial workers here in Illinois and Indiana, as well as across the nation, these numbers must sound an alarm for those workers and their families. This is particularly true for those workers in our recognized “high hazard industries” like construction, manufacturing, trucking, mining, and warehousing. For more, read High Hazard Industrial Workplaces: 2024 Online Exposure of Accident Injury and Illness Realities.
The dangers facing many workers are life-threatening even when all known safety protocols are in place. Some of our work environments come with known risks, and workers understand these hazards as they go about their daily tasks.
However, to have employers continuing to disrespect and disregard established safety protections year after year is horrendous. The risk of their employees being seriously injured or killed in a worksite accident is compounded by this lackadaisical attitude. It is clear that for too many employers in this country, profits are more important than people.
Workers must be cognizant of this reality and be ready to take extra precautions on the job, as well as knowing their rights to stop work when necessary to keep themselves and others from blatant dangers on the job site.
For more, read:
- Worker Rights Under Federal Law: OSHA Protections and Employer Violations
- Manufacturing Work in Indiana and Illinois: Can Workers Force Manufacturers to Make Job Sites Safer?
- Dangerous Work Site: Your Right to Stop Work to Avoid Injury or Death
- Worker’s Right to Stop Dangerous Work Operations in Indiana and Illinois.
Industrial workers are at a great and rising risk of catastrophic harm or death on the job today. While state and federal laws offer avenues for justice in the aftermath of a serious injury through the laws for negligence, product liability, workers’ compensation, and wrongful death, these people deserve to be given protections in place to prevent these accidents from happening in the first place.
See:
- Wrongful Death Damages After Fatal Work Accidents in Illinois or Indiana
- Catastrophic Injury Accidents: Special Legal Protections for Victims and Families in Indiana and Illinois
- The Two Main Differences Between Workers Compensation and Personal Injury Claims for Accident Victims in Indiana and Illinois.
Working on the job today is more dangerous than ever before and the new OSHA Top Ten List confirms that important federal safety protections are not being followed to keep people safe on the job. Please be careful out there!
