OSHA fines Massachusetts roofing contractor for fall violations

ConDig (15-Feb-23).  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined a Massachusetts-based roofing contractor $137,196 for exposing workers to dangerous fall hazards.

Following a monitoring inspection at a company work site on Roach Street in Quincy, the agency said The Roof Kings LLC was cited for failing to provide employees an adequate fall protection system and ensuring employees’ fall protection equipment was effectively anchored to prevent falls.

It also failed to inspect employees’ personal fall arrest systems prior to each use and remove defective components from service and train employees in fall protection and how to recognize fall hazards.

“The Roof Kings LLC knows and continually ignores its responsibilities to protect employees from imminent hazards that can end their careers or lives,” said OSHA area director James Mulligan. 

“This company is a serial violator whose ongoing defiance of the law and willingness to put workers at risk of dangerous and disabling falls is troubling and potentially deadly. Workplace safety is not a game of chance, dependent on whether an employer chooses to protect or risk its employees’ well-being from day to day.”

In May 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit found The Roof Kings LLC in contempt for failing to honor a settlement agreement with OSHA reached in 2017. In the agreement, the company pledged to pay its outstanding OSHA penalties for the four previous inspections in Boston, Medford, Haverhill and Dorchester between 2014 and 2016, and employ specific safety and health abatement procedures.

Falls are the leading cause of death in construction work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 986 construction workers died on the job in 2021, with 378 of those fatalities related to falls from elevation.

The Roof Kings LLC, a residential and commercial contractor operating in the Boston area for more than 30 years, has contested these latest citations and penalties to the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Earlier this month, OSHA fined a Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based contractor $85,005 for two safety violations. The agency said that Siteworks Inc had failed to take required steps to protect employees working near electrical powerlines from dangerous electric shock on one project last August.

In November, OSHA fined two demolition contracts a total of $691,000 following a mezzanine collapse at former South Boston power plant.

Also in November, OSHA fined a developer and two subcontractors for exposing employees to potentially lethal dangers by allowing them to work near energized power lines on a New Jersey project.

Earlier in October, OSHA fined a Missouri-based contractor $58,008 following a deadly trench collapse.