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

cited Vallencourt Construction Co. for two willful and five serious safety and health violations.

They come in response to an inspections in June of. The violations are for a lack of cave-in

protection, using equipment in a manner not intended by the manufacturer, and failing to conduct

an inspection on lift equipment. These violations carry proposed penalties of $169,000.

“Vallencourt’s on-site managers saw workers in an unprotected excavation and knew the

employees had not followed proper safety procedures, but they failed to take action to protect the

workers,” said Brian Sturtecky, director of OSHA’s Jacksonville Area Office. “An employer that

willfully disregards safety procedures puts workers at risk of being killed or seriously injured.

OSHA standards exist to save lives.”

The two willful violations were for allowing employees to work in an excavation without cave-in

protection and failing to ensure soil and rocks were 2 feet from the excavation’s edge to prevent

these materials from falling in and injuring workers. The five serious violations were for failure

to conduct inspections on equipment used to lift construction materials, such as slings hooks and

cables; remove damaged lifting equipment from service; and use lifting equipment in a manner

not intended by the manufacturer.

All of these violations could have been prevented with a third party safety audit from a qualified

third party occupational safety and health auditing firm. A good third party auditor will expose

any hazards, list solutions to said hazards, and help you create a series of policies and procedures

to ensure violations do not occur.

If you have any questions about third party safety audits, please contact us. If you would like to

add anything about this case or about third party safety audits, please leave a comment.