Oregon OSHA recently fined a general contractor $38,390 for committing several safety violations, including a repeat offense of failure to provide sufficient fall protection for workers.

After a confidential complaint was filed against Mid Oregon Builders LLC of Roseburg, an inspection took place at construction sites in Sutherlin, Winston and Roseburg. Company employees and a supervisor were interviewed, and record-keeping practices were reviewed.

Roofing work by Mid Oregon Builders at a site in Sutherlin reportedly exposed workers in danger of potentially falling at least 13 feet – without use of personal fall arrest or guardrail systems. This was the company’s fourth violation of fall protection rules since October 2018, according to Oregon OSHA. That drew a $36,000 fine from the state agency.

“Our fall protection requirements are designed to prevent serious injury or death, and they have proven effective at protecting workers,” Michael Wood, administrator for Oregon OSHA, stated in a press release. “Repeatedly failing to take them seriously demonstrates a lack of responsibility and serves only one purpose – to further put lives at risk.”

The inspection found other violations that generated fines totaling $2,390. They were: failure to ensure employees were trained by a competent person qualified in use and operation of fall protection systems, failure to take all reasonable steps to provide adequate fall protection and ensure employees use protective systems while working on elevated surfaces, failure to provide copies of injury and illness records for 2019 in a timely manner, and failure to enter each recordable injury or illness on proper documents in a timely manner for 2018 and 2019.

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