Legislation & regulations

Behr Iron & Metal pleads guilty to OSHA violations causing an employee’s death

Behr Iron & Metal, based in Rockford, Illinois, pleaded guilty March 8, 2016, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Iain D. Johnston to willfully violating Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations, resulting in the death of an employee at its facility in South Beloit, Illinois.

Behr admitted in a plea agreement that it failed to provide lockout/tagout protection and confined space protection March 10, 2014, as required under OSHA regulations for employees who were cleaning a shredder discharge pit, the agency reports. Behr said those violations caused the death of an employee who got caught in a moving, unguarded conveyor belt.

The company faces a maximum sentence of five years’ probation, a maximum fine of $500,000 and restitution to the victim in an amount determined by the court. Sentencing is scheduled for July 12, 2016, at 1:30 p.m.

The guilty plea was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois, and Ken Nishiyama Atha, Chicago administrator of OSHA.

“Justice cannot restore life to the victim whose body was crushed because Behr Iron and Steel failed to provide protection from dangerous machinery on the job,” Atha says. “Safety training at the plant was woefully insufficient. Behr must be held responsible by the courts for ignoring safety standards and failing in its obligation to protect its workers on the job.”

According to the plea agreement, OSHA regulations require employers to adopt safety procedures to ensure dangerous machines are properly shut off and unable to start up again prior to the completion of maintenance or servicing work. The safety procedures include placing a lock on the power source of the machine and a tag on the lock warning that the machine cannot be operated until the warning is removed and identifying the employee who has the key to the lock. OSHA also promulgated regulations that address the need to protect employees from entering a confined space without safety precautions.

OSHA says Behr admitted there was no lock or operable emergency shut-off switch in the discharge pit for the conveyor belt and the conveyor belt did not have guards designed to protect employees. Behr also admitted that employees in the pit were not trained adequately to use the shredder or conveyor belt and that it had not developed and implemented confined space protection for employees in the pit.