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

cited Stampcoat Inc. doing business as El Paso Tool & Die for thirty three safety and health

violations, comprised of thirty two serious, and one other than serious violations. They come in

response to inspections of a facility in El Paso, TX in March through May of 2015. These

inspection were initiated in response to several employees being injured by way of amputation.

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 $119,000.

“For somebody working with a die stamp, a proper machine guard can mean the difference

between keeping your fingers or losing them. The violations at this facility led to two workers

being permanently injured. OSHA’s standards addressing these hazards have existed for decades,

and the failure to follow these most basic safety requirements is unacceptable,” said Diego

Alvarado Jr., OSHA’s area director in El Paso.

As you can see, OSHA is serious when it comes to regulations relating to machine guarding and

lockout tagout, as these regulations are often last-line defenses for employees to avoid injury. So

if you have not recently updated your policies and procedures or if you have any questions about

how to update them, please contact a third party occupational safety and health auditing firm to

help you. It’s better to get it down now than to wait for a situation like this where an employee is

injured.

If you have any questions about occupational safety and health policies and procedures, please

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