14 violations at a Miami Beach house where a worker, 22, was killed, OSHA says
An incompetently inspected scaffold and a missing pully pin were among the safety violations leading to the death of a 22-year-old working on the construction of a Miami Beach house, OSHA said in an inspection report.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s workplace-safety arm wants Homestead’s Stucco Works, run by President Miguel Jimenez and agent Christopher Jimenez, to pay $74,555 in fines. Stucco Works, which has no other Occupational Safety and
Health Administration citations in the past 10 years, has contested the fines.
“Stucco Works’ failure to make employee safety a priority led to the loss of a young worker’s life,” OSHA Area Office Director Condell Eastmond said. “Employers are required to follow the federal standards that are meant to protect workers from the hazards that caused this tragedy.”
Of the violations, 12 of the 14 were classified as “serious,” and two were designated “other-thanserious.” None were classified as “willful.”
According to OSHA, the tragedy happened around 11 a.m. on July 13 during work on a two-story home being built at 1096 N. Venetian Dr.
“An employee working on a plastering project for a construction company was filling buckets with concrete. The employee needed to take the buckets to the second floor of a building using a scaffold pulley system. The pulley system fell off and the top part hit the employee in the head. The employee died from blunt force trauma...”
The largest proposed fine, $15,625, came for the violation described by OSHA as “on the north (front) side of the house, the scaffold system was overloaded in that the hoist/pulley on the scaffold system was missing a coupling pin, exposing employees to struck-by and/or crushed-by hazards.”
To file a workplace-safety complaint with OSHA go to its website or call 800321-6742 (OSHA).