Top 10 Safety Violations of 2018

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently released its list of 2018’s top workplace safety violations – and the culprits are responsible for tens of thousands of preventable illnesses, injuries, and deaths every year.

OSHA’s Top 10 – and Why It’s Important

OSHA releases its list of top 10 workplace safety violations every year – and the organization does it for a few important reasons. Knowing what the most common safety violations are not only alerts employers and employees to what they need to look out for, but it also draws attention to the areas that employers have room to improve on.

The top 10 safety violations of 2018 were:

• Personal protective and lifesaving equipment – eye and face protection;
• Machine guarding;
• Fall protection – training requirements;
• Powered industrial trucks;
• Ladders;
• Lockout/tagout procedures (powering down machines);
• Respiratory protection;
• Scaffolds – general requirements;
• Hazard communication, and:
• Fall protection – general requirements

Altogether, these safety failures accounted for more than 32,000 total violations that OSHA issued to employers across the country – and the administration is not done counting. So far, the numbers indicate that the top 10 violations are responsible for roughly 60% of all workplace incidents (e.g. illness, injury, and/or death) during the 2018 fiscal year.

A Dangerous Trend in Work Safety

2018 saw a 10% increase in the overall number of violations issued than the year before – and some areas, such as training requirements for fall protection became even more dangerous for workers. To find out more or to read OSHA’s complete top 10 list, click here.

How to Keep Workers Safe

It is critical that employers – and employees –know what to look out for in the workplace. Employers should utilize OSHA’s list to come up with effective and compliant workplace safety and health programs – like ones that focus on protective equipment, what to do in the case of an emergency or crisis, and ensuring that scaffolding is properly installed, up to code, and safe to for workers to use.

Employees who fail to keep their workers safe are not just doing the wrong thing – they are also breaking the law. All employees are legally obligated to protect workers from recognizable workplace hazards. Yet, even with the laws in place, hardworking men and women get sick and injured – even killed – on the job every day. Tragically, the majority of these incidents are 100% preventable.

Did you or a loved one get injured at work? If so and you have questions about filing an anonymous safety complaint or if you would like to learn more about filing a Workers’ Compensation claim, please contact a representative at our firm directly. We can help.

Philadelphia Workers’ Compensation Lawyers at Galfand Berger, LLP Represent Individuals Injured at Work

If you were injured at work, please contact our Philadelphia Workers’ Compensation lawyers at Galfand Berger. With offices located in Philadelphia, Bethlehem, Lancaster, and Reading we serve clients throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. To schedule a consultation, call us at 800-222-8792 or complete our online contact form.