Company Fined for Scaffolding Violations

Escape Stucco and Stone faces a proposed $78,000 in fines for nine safety violations while replacing a chimney on South Cobb Drive in Smyrna.

The Powder Springs business had six repeat violations from previous inspections related to scaffolding safety, according to a news release today from the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Those six, which led to $70,000 in fines, are:

• Allowing employees to use a scaffolding system that was not fully planked.
• Permitting the scaffolding legs not to be adequately supported on the base plates.
• Failing to have a ladder on the scaffolding as a means to access and exit the working platform.
• Failing to protect workers from falling more than 25 feet by having a guardrail, safety net or personal arrest system in place.
• Missing cross bracing on the scaffolding system.
• Not ensuring employees working on a fabricated frame scaffold were trained to recognize and minimize hazards.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration considers violations as repeats if they’ve happened within the last five years. Escape Stucco and Stone was inspected and cited in December 2010 and this past January.

Andre C. Richards, director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Atlanta-West Area Office, called the repeat violations “totally unacceptable.”

“It’s time for this employer to make safety and health a priority at all of its job sites before someone is killed,” he says in the release.

The release says the remaining $8,000 in fines comes from three “serious” violations:

• Failing to develop and implement a written hazard communication program for chemicals that could cause serious burns.
• Allowing employees to use scaffolding that was assembled with parts from different manufacturers.
• Allowing employees to work from a poorly constructed and unstable scaffolding system.

“Serious” violations are ones that carry a “substantial probability” for death or "serious physical harm," the release says.

Escape Stucco and Stone was given 15 days to either comply, request a conference with an Occupational Safety and Health area director, or contest the findings. 

Detailed information on scaffold hazards and safe work practices can be found by clicking here.