The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration

has issued 14 safety citations to Formed Fiber Technologies, LLC with fines totaling

$816,500. These citations came as a result of a follow up audit performed in January.

The company was audited last October and received citations for 11 violations totaling

$69,000 in fines at that time.

The citations carry such a high fine because most of them have been deemed repeat

citations. Formed Fiber Technologies further complicated the matter by allegedly making

false representations in relation to abatement of hazards. When OSHA returned to

investigate, many of the same hazards were still present.

“Formed Fiber Technologies apparently decided that production was more important than

ensuring its workers” safety. They provided false abatement documentation to OSHA.

They knew how hazardous these machines were without proper safeguards and also knew

exactly how to fix those hazards,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational

Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. “OSHA will not tolerate such blatant disregard for

worker safety.”

If you own a business which has recently been audited, it is imperative you take the time

to correct the issues uncovered by OSHA. As you can see, failure to do so can result in

substantially larger fines; in this case, the fines resulting from the follow up were more

than 10 times the cost of the original fines. So if you should go through an audit and

any citations arise, please contact a qualified third party occupational health and safety

auditing firm to review the findings with you and help you properly abate your hazards.

If you have any questions about how to properly fix any issues uncovered in your facility,

or if you would like to ensure your facility is currently up to code with all of OSHA’s

standards, please contact us. If you have anything to add about the importance of properly

abating hazards after an OSHA investigation, please leave a comment.