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

cited American Air Filter Co. for five safety and health violations, comprised of two willful, two

serious, and one other than serious violations. They come in response to inspections of a facility

in Atlanta, GA in March of 2015. This inspection was initiated as part of the agency’s Severe

Violator Enforcement Program. The citations are for issues relating to a failure to provide proper

machine guarding to protect employees from amputation hazards and not following proper

lockout tagout safety procedures. These violations carry proposed penalties of $119,900.

“This is the second significant enforcement action we’ve conducted at AAF International in the

last six months,” said Bill Fulcher, director of OSHA’s Atlanta-East Area Office. “We found the

same type of hazards during a recent inspection in a different area at the same plant.

Management continues to allow workers to clean equipment without following safety procedures

and without guards being properly installed. This company needs to address all workplace

hazards, not just the ones for which penalties have been proposed.”

This is a clear example of why you need to correct any issues found during an OSHA inspection.

Failure to correct known issues will create hefty fines and give OSHA a reason to continually

reinvestigate your facility. Similarly, you need to ensure any changes made do not create issues

in other areas of your occupational safety and health policies and procedures. To ensure

everything is up to code and accurate, it might be advisable to hire a third party occupational

safety and health auditing firm to assist in making these adjustments.

If you have any questions about this inspection or about occupational safety and health in

general, please contact us. If you have anything to add about this inspection, please leave a

comment.