The Ada, Ohio factory that makes the National Football League’s footballs has been assessed federal fines of more than $65,000 for workplace safety violations while a Williams County lawn-care company has been ordered to pay a $12,675 fine stemming from a fatal accident involving one of its workers in May.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has found Wilson Sporting Goods Co. in violation six times of workplace-safety rules, all involving failures to properly cut off the power on equipment before workers replaced parts or performed maintenance. A related accident resulted in the partial amputation of a worker’s finger.
Three of the violations were identified in conjunction from a February inspection and three others from a June inspection. The worker’s injury occurred June 6.
OSHA recommended $27,162 in fines related to the first inspection, in which inspectors found Wilson to have inadequately protected or trained workers regarding safe energy control around the plant’s Franklin roll leaf stamping presses.
The agency proposed fines totaling $38,025 related to similar violations involving a transporter conveyor in the plant’s “Singer Area.” In the June 6 incident, the conveyor was not locked out prior to cleaning, resulting in the worker’s injury “while performing trouble-shooting activities,” according to the OSHA citation.
A Wilson representative at the company’s Chicago headquarters did not respond to a message requesting comment. The company can contest the citation and the fines.
The single violation lodged against Clark’s Lawn Care & Snow Removal LLC, of West Unity, Ohio, meanwhile, found that the firm did not adequately protect its employees against potential roll-over hazards resulting in crushing or drowning injuries.
On May 22, an employee identified in local news reports as Benjamin Rediger, 36, of West Unity, died when the zero-turn riding lawn mower he was operating at the Menards distribution center on Williams County Road 15 near Holiday City, Ohio rolled over into a ditch.
Russell Clark, the company’s proprietor, said Tuesday he had reached a settlement with OSHA. He declined to comment further.
OSHA also recently cited Libbey Inc., a Toledo roofing contractor, and a Lima, Ohio packaging company for workplace-safety violations.
The Libbey citation states that a June inspection found the Toledo tableware company failed to train employees to properly lock-out/tag-out machinery at its Ash Street plant and failed to ensure that one machine was properly isolated from energy sources while employees changed finish molds. Failure to isolate the machine from electrical or pneumatic energy sources exposed employees to hazards, OSHA said. The agency has proposed $12,675 fines for each of the two violations.
Roofing contractor Charles Tucker is to be fined $19,719 for four safety violations, including one listed as a repeat violation, for failures to ensure workers wore eye protection while using pneumatic nail guns. The other citations were for failure to have proper fall protection on the roof and other safeguards at its work site at 6800 Ridgewood Trail, Toledo.
The citation stated that the roofing firm was cited for inadequate use of fall protection at a job site in Sylvania in 2014.
Fall protection and lock-out/tag-out of electrical machinery before repair and cleaning also were the safety issues alleged in a citation against Greto Heartland Industrial Packaging LLC, for which OSHA has proposed $21,612 in fines. Inspections were conducted there in July and this month.
For all companies, the citations and fines are subject to appeal.
First Published September 19, 2017, 8:43 p.m.
