Article created by: Vėja Elkimavičiūtė
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that strives to ensure the well-being of workers across various industries, such as construction, agriculture, and so on.
It achieves this by setting standards, providing training, outreach, education, and assistance, as well as enforcing compliance with regulations through inspections and enforcement actions.
Not an inspector, but i work in the food industry and there are these big packaging robots in our factory. These things have gates that close of every part of the machine so that no one can access anything while it's active and it shuts down as soon as a gate is opened.
Well here's the thing. It takes a while to reboot the machine when it shuts down and the operators don't like that. So in some MacGyver way they managed to rig the sensor in not noticing that the door is opened if they need to fix something or get some cardboard unstuck.
Last year a guy climbed into that machine to fix something and while he thought he was safe asked the new guy to press the start button on the machine to test if the fix had worked. The machine however didn't shut down because the gate had opened and just immediately restarted. The guy inside only had his ribs crushed because the new guy luckily had the reaction speed to press the emergency shutdown button in time.
Safe to say we've been in safety meetings and giving safety training for over a year now...
My old boss fell into an open pit while showing the inspectors around. Good times.
A man crushed under a piece of marble. He was already meeting his maker and his mortal remains are seared into my memory. The owner hadn’t checked on him in a few days and he probably had been conscious for a while, evidenced by the lack of nails, the scratch marks in the dirt, on the block and the lack of gas in the forklift. My first successful prosecution, go me!
I started work in a little factory. It’s been operating for almost 30 years. The day I started, I noticed there were zero fire extinguishers anywhere. None. Anywhere. In the entire building. Upon further inspection, there were no smoke detectors or fire alarms. I started asking around, and the employees told me they hadn’t ever had a fire drill. Ever. There wasn’t even a plan. The welders told me *there’s fires in the building all the time,* and they just scramble to put them out with whatever is on hand. For some reason, no one thought twice about it. They didn’t think about it ever. It was just cool.
I asked the safety guy. Like the manager dude that has “health and safety” on his badge. He lied to me and said that the plant was “grandfathered in to not having fire measures.”
Needless to say I quit. I had a conversation with a friend who works with an OSHA compliance agency, and he alerted whatever authority could take action. My friend’s employer actually ended up gaining a big contract from that factory to bring them up to code. The factory was ordered to do so under penalty.
Once saw a makeshift welding station shielded by beach umbrellas and duct tape. The worker was wearing sunglasses instead of a welding mask. Said it gave him a 'summer vibe'. I was speechless!
Not an OSHA inspector but as an electrician in the elevator industry one of our supervisors walked in to a 7 or 8 story lift shaft to find one worker in a makeshift harness made by combining and tying slings together being lifted up the shaft by a co worker using an electric winch hanging on the top of the shaft... They were both Chinese nationals the boss had bought over to work and were Actually very good Liftys but had absolute NO CONCEPT of safety and clearly no regard for their own lives
We had a volunteer (non profit business) with 20 years experience in building trades and another 5 as a volunteer, fire a nail gun through his hand while demonstrating to our clients how a nail gun has a mechanism to stop it from firing unless it was pressed up against something....
Former hospital safety inspector here. We acquired a surgeon’s private practice and when I went in to inspect the first time, there were soiled instruments with blood on them in the sink of the employee break room next to the used coffee cups. Biohazard waste receptacle and autoclave in there too. No separation of clean and soiled. I’m a firm believer in doctor’s offices being owned and run by hospitals because the standards are higher.
I'm not an OSHA inspector, but if my workplace had an inspection, it would go down badly.
Guy working a large drillpress at high feed with barely enough emulsion and no ventilation in a 4×4m box. Those fumes fry ur lungs and brain.
India styled cable management hanging atop and from a single pole hangar crane with a max lifting load of 1t, lifting 3t while bending about 10%.
Rod polishing on lathes with hands in gloves and long sleeve hoodies.
Hydraulic oil everywhere, usually collected if not spilled in large barells, then burned during winter in a shady oil furnace that catches fire once a week.
Chemicals in used water bottles with no labeling all around the place.
Everything that you touch zaps you most of the time, especially tap water while washing hands. We once took a tester and turned out everything in that place, even the hangar itself, had 35v running through at all times. Every single thing. Even the tap water.
Tens of unreported accidents a year. There was an employee who blew himself up a few years back. He was doing DIY pyrotechnics and smoked next to a powder mill. Explosives squad was called in, and they found 200kg of explosoves in his closet at work.
Not an inspector, but was working on a job where some ceiling installer was on a scissor lift, bunch of guys underneath him, some working with water. Guy had a spotter who wasn't paying attention, as the lift operator was raising the platform, it caught onto a spider box cable (large electrical line) and was about to pull way too much tension. I ran over and yelled to get the operators attention, then was forced to hit the E shut off switch on the ground. He yelled at me, the spotter yelled at me, everyone looked at me wondering what I was doing. I pointed at the cable and asked him what he thought of it, operator saw the cable, and turned white as a ghost as he realized he almost cooked himself and others.
Bonus: I watched from the 5th floor as some gate installers almost killed themselves. They were installed a huge side slider gate to a concrete wall, gate popped loose and hit the ground, then fell over and nearly missed a guy by literal inches, the guy body slammed a porta potty to get out of the way.
I’m not an OSHA inspector but I am a lawyer that works for a very large company. We had a department team building playing laser tag on company premises and 4(!) separate attorneys ended up tripping over decor that had been put up and spraining their ankles. A week later the company president came to meet with the general counsel and saw a bunch of attorneys with matching boots on and freaked out.
I was the UK equivalent (Health and Safety Executive Inspector). I was inspecting and oil and gas production facility owned by one of the super majors.
In one of the pump rooms there was an eye wash station. On top of the eye wash station someone had left a bottle of acid.
It still makes me laugh (as no one was hurt) imagining a scenario like that from a third rate comedy movie where some poor soul got something in their eye, stumbles blindly to the eye wash station, and proceeds to squeeze a load of acid into their face.
Not OSHA cause not USA, but internal company safety inspector:
Guy broke a few bones after doing unsafe stuff without proper equipment.
Guy and his buddies knew the guy would get treated at the plant but would get a written warning for not following protocol (enought of those result in termination). So they hid the guy in a shipping container until end of shift (something like 3 hours) and carried him to the free hospital afterwards.
It was actually before I moved into health and safety (not American).
I worked for an industrial demolition company and I witnessed two premature collapses where people in the vicinity almost died and two failed collapses which are arguably scarier because people have to go back into an already weakened structure.
We’re talking like 10,000 tonnes of steel coming down unexpectedly and only missing people by a few meters.
I, unfortunately, was on of those people on one occasion. It was my final day in the industry.
2m deep trench with no shoring
Working at heights and on construction sites wearing flipflops
Working on live electrical wires with no electric insulation
Used condoms in the middle of the factory
And so on and so forth
Guys working in a 25 foot deep trench with oil contamination all around them with no ventilation and shoring that didn’t reach the top of grade.
I worked with a guy who wanted to collect our lock out tag out keys for "safety." Not so exciting, but bizarre and kind of scary.
For those who don't know, every contractor on site has a key to lock machinery that need maintenance out of their functions. So, in theory, the machine doesn't function until the locks from every worker are personly removed when work is finished, and everyone is a safe distance away.
These things would have smeared my mascerated body all over the place. I trust the locks a little more in my own hands.
