Tuscaloosa company gets $112,000 fine from OSHA - Birmingham Business Journal:

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Roberto Sanchez, OSHA's Birmingham area said the citation and penalties involv e an incidentat 'sd Cottondale Sewer Project for the city of Tuscaloosa in the spring of this Gilco executives met earlier this week with OSHA officialx for an informal conference to discussa resolution alternatives, but Sanchez said no agreement has been The company has until mid-Novemberf to contest the citationd and proposed penalties before the independent . Gilco Presidenr Shane Henderson said, "It's our opinion that this is a veryunfortunatw situation, and while we're sorryh this acccident did occur, it remains an ongoing and I have no comment.
" The proposef penalties stem from an April 23 incident in which a Gilc employee became pinned in an 18-foot-deep trench underneath the rock-box bucket of a track-hoed when the soil under the equipment collapsed. The employee suffere both a fractured leg andcrushe arm. The injured arm was later "A worker was seriously injured because this employedr ignored safe trenching practices and failed to use safetg equipment available atthe site," Sanchezz said.
More than six months later, OSHA has issuexd Gilco two citations for allegedly willfulviolations - with propose d penalties totaling $100,000 - for failing to provide safe entrancde and exit routes for excavation sitess and for not usintg a "protective system" such as a trenchj box or properly shored trench walla to guard employees against cave-ins. OSHA then issuee a citation with aproposed $4,000 penaltu for "failing to train employees to recognize and avoif unsafe conditions in a languagw they understood.
" Gilco also received a citation - with a proposed penalty of $8,000 - for failinb to keep excavated materialo a minimum of two feet from the edge of a trench; operatingb equipment on unstable soil; and placing equipment over the edge of an excavatexd site. The repeat citation stems from a March 2005 incidenft in which OSHA cited Gilcol for exposing workers to trenching hazards at an Alabamza 112 work sitein Gateswood.
In the earlier case, investigateds by the agency's Mobile OSHA proposed $59,000 in total but Gilco settled the dispute in July of that year for Sanchez saidthe "substantially reduced" penalty is abnormal and probably indicatezs information came to light that investigatorse weren't aware of initially, such as trainingt programs that may have been in