The Department of Labor announced that a GE-brand appliances manufacturer in Decatur, Alabama failed to follow machine standards that could have prevented fatal injuries to a 58-year-old front-line supervisor trying to service a door molding machine.
OSHA inspectors opened an investigation of the July 2024 incident at Haier U.S. Appliance Solutions Inc. and found the company allowed workers to bypass the machine’s safety doors and did not use required procedures to prevent employee injuries in the carousel-like machine.
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OSHA cited the company, which operates as GE Appliances, for one willful violation for failing to follow lockout/tagout procedures to de-energize the machine before allowing service or maintenance. Inspectors also cited Haier for two serious violations for permitting employees to bypass interlocking safety doors to gain access to the machine and for not maintaining annual inspections for lockout/tagout procedures.
The company faces $193,585 in proposed penalties, the maximum that OSHA can legally recommend.
This incident continues a history of 40 safety inspections dating back to 2016 at two Haier U.S. Appliance Solutions’ manufacturing facilities in Louisville, Kentucky and in Decatur. These inspections included many machine safety violations, including two repeated and two serious violations of lockout/tagout requirements cited after a 55-year-old worker’s fatality in Louisville in February 2019.
Based in Louisville, Haier U.S. Appliance Solutions Inc. manufactures household refrigerators and freezers and employs about 1,575 people in Decatur. A subsidiary of China-based Haier Smart Home Company, Hair U.S. Appliance Solutions has appliance manufacturing facilities in Louisville and Decatur and distribution centers in Dallas, Denver, northern Georgia and northern California.
The company has 15 business days from receipt of their citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
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