Jerlow Construction Co., an Edmond, Oklahoma, contractor, faces $85,173 in Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fines after a 61-year-old pipe layer suffered fatal injuries when a 9-foot-deep trench collapsed at a residential worksite near Shawnee, OSHA announced August 6.

The employer has a history of workplace safety violations dating back to 2018, including three related to the dangers in underground trenches, according to the agency.

Investigators determined that the employer allowed its employees to work in an excavation without proper protections, including shielding, benching, sloping, or other devices. The trench collapse occurred as employees worked below the surface to install an 8-inch water line.

OSHA cited Jerlow Construction with one repeat and three serious violations. Safety violations included failures to:

• Provide adequate systems to prevent trench cave-ins.
• Train employees on how to recognize hazards related to excavations.
• Perform daily inspections to verify safe entry conditions for the excavation.

“No one should ever be allowed to enter or work in an excavation without required protective systems in place and without inspection of the trench by a qualified person,” Steven Kirby, OSHA’s Oklahoma City area office director, said in an agency statement. “Despite numerous warnings and notices of violations for failing to protect employees in trenches, Jerlow Construction has joined the all-too-long list of employers whose defiance of federal regulations resulted in a preventable loss of life. Their failures are inexcusable.”

Over the past few years, OSHA has ramped up enforcement of its trenching and excavation requirements:

• It has an ongoing National Emphasis Program (NEP) of outreach, inspection, and enforcement to address trenching and excavation hazards.
• In 2022, OSHA announced plans for 1,000 excavation inspections following an uptick in trench fatalities that year.
• Last year, it unveiled a new enforcement policy of “instance-by-instance” citations for “high-gravity” serious violations of several standards, including its standard for trenching.

East Texas pallet manufacturer cited for amputation hazards

M&H Crates Inc., a Jacksonville, Texas, pallet manufacturer, faces $254,527 in OSHA penalties for continuing to expose its employees to amputation hazards, the agency announced August 6.

Agency inspectors returned to M&H Crates in February 2024 and found lockout/tagout violations similar to those found during inspections in 2012 and in subsequent visits in 2014, 2020, and 2022.

Following two inspections in 2022, OSHA cited M&H Crates with 1 willful violation and 12 serious violations related to fall hazards, forklift drivers who weren’t using required seatbelts, unsafe machine operations, and workers who weren’t trained to understand or follow lockout/tagout procedures to prevent sudden machine starts or movements.

“M&H Crates Inc. continues to ignore its legal responsibility to comply with federal workplace safety standards,” Greg Wynn, OSHA’s Dallas area office director, said in a statement. “We will use all measures available to us to hold this company accountable for its continued willingness to expose employees to the serious dangers that exist in manufacturing workplaces.”

OSHA’s lockout/tagout standard (29 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) §1910.147) is the agency’s sixth most frequently cited standard, cited 2,554 times in fiscal year (FY) 2023.