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Temp permanently disabled in accident after 12 days on job, buyer cited

January 08, 2015

A temporary worker was permanently disabled after a machine used to package cases of bottled water onto a pallet for shipment started up while he cleared a jam in the machine, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration reported. The plastic bottle manufacturer, Ice River Springs in High Springs, Fla., was cited for three safety violations and faces $84,000 in proposed penalties.

The 50-year-old worker had been on the job for 12 days. According to an OSHA investigation in July 2014, Ice River Springs allowed workers to enter the palletizer’s safety cage area and bypass two photo-eye safety sensors that served as machine safeguards. When the employee freed the pallet from its jammed position, he unknowingly activated the palletizer elevator’s photo-eye sensor and became entrapped between the elevator and the palletizer conveyor. OSHA cited the water-bottle manufacturer for three safety violations.

OSHA issued a willful citation to Ice River Springs for failure to ensure workers were protected from moving machine parts during service or maintenance. Two serious violations were cited for failure to conduct an annual inspection of lockout/tagout procedures and for not training workers to recognize hazardous machinery or implement proper maintenance controls.

Forty-one full-time and temporary employees work onsite, according to OSHA.

TempForce of Gainesville, Fla., a franchised affiliate of Randstad, provided Ice River Springs with temporary workers while Ice River Springs provided daily supervision, training and direction for the temporary workers employed at the facility, according to OSHA. The agency concluded an inspection with TempForce and did not issue citations to the staffing agency.

“OSHA has received far too many reports of temporary workers injured or killed on the job, with some of these incidents occurring in the employee’s first few days at work,” said Brian Sturtecky, OSHA’s area director in Jacksonville, Fla. “It is critical that Ice River Springs and TempForce understand OSHA’s newest initiatives to protect temporary workers, which must include shared responsibility by the host employer and the temporary staffing agency. These initiatives include taking effective steps to ensure that each temporary worker is sufficiently trained and monitored to safeguard them from the hazards of their new work environment.”

Ice River Springs operates 11 facilities in North America. The company manufactures plastic bottles that are filled with water from a neighboring spring and packaged for grocery operators with the company’s label. It has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, request a conference with OSHA's area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.