Orlando, FL — For the 14th consecutive fiscal 12 months, Fall Protection – General Requirements is OSHA’s most frequently cited customary, the company and Safety+Health introduced throughout the 2024 NSC Safety Congress & Expo.
Scott Ketcham, director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, offered the preliminary list – which represents OSHA Information System knowledge from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 5 – and S+H Associate Editor Kevin Druley moderated the session from the Learning Lab on the Expo Floor.
“OSHA takes falls very seriously,” Ketcham mentioned throughout the presentation. “We’re attempting to curb this hazard and make inroads to assist individuals perceive the usual and necessities.
“Too many lives are lost each year from workers who fall to their death.”
The standards that comprise the Top 10 remained unchanged from FY 2023. However, motion occurred throughout the rating. Respiratory Protection, which ranked seventh in FY 2023, climbed three spots to No. 4. Scaffolding, in the meantime, fell 4 spots to No. 8.
“What’s more precious than our lungs?” Ketcham requested the viewers.
The full list:
- Fall Protection – General Requirements (1926.501): 6,307 violations
- Hazard Communication (1910.1200): 2,888
- Ladders (1926.1053): 2,573
- Respiratory Protection (1910.134): 2,470
- Lockout/Tagout (1910.147): 2,443
- Powered Industrial Trucks (1910.178): 2,248
- Fall Protection – Training Requirements (1926.503): 2,050
- Scaffolding (1926.451): 1,873
- Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection (1926.102): 1,814
- Machine Guarding (1910.212): 1,541
“While incredible advancements are made in safety each year, we continue to see many of the same types of violations appear on OSHA’s Top 10 list,” mentioned Lorraine Martin, NSC president and CEO. “As a safety community, it’s critical we come together to acknowledge these persistent trends and identify solutions to better protect our workforces.”
Finalized knowledge, together with extra particulars and unique content material, shall be revealed within the December challenge of S+H.
Immediately after Ketcham’s presentation, Mark Chung, government vice chairman of security management and advocacy at NSC, and Ken Kolosh, the council’s statistics supervisor, offered “The Injuries Behind the Fines.”
Kolosh emphasised that the Bureau of Labor Statistics knowledge be offered isn’t a one-to-one relationship, that it’s offered for illustrative functions – not benchmarking. He went on to say that the “injuries and fatality events are provided as examples that may be associated with the violation.”
Using the Top 10 list, Chung mentioned the BLS knowledge reveals that falls accounted for 865 office fatalities in 2022. Of these, 700 had been the consequence of a fall to a decrease stage.
Other reported causes of loss of life in 2022, per BLS:
- Transportation incidents: 2,066
- Workplace violence: 865
- Overdose: 525
- Exposure to electrical energy: 145
- Forklift, order picker, platform truck – Powered: 73
- Caught in operating tools or equipment throughout upkeep or cleansing: 54
- Caught in operating tools: 35
“There have been increasing numbers of overdoses,” Chung mentioned. “We need to keep an eye on this and deploy proper countermeasures.”
