OSHA Inspection: CARTER RICE

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Nov 15, 1992

Penalty

Initial $2,625 · Current $2,125 Reduced

General-duty citation text

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970:  The
employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which
were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause
death or serious physical harm to employees in that employeeshave
injured their backs while handling cartons of paper weighing up to
160 lbs. for up to 16 hours per day in the Warren Dept.  The handling
of the cartons involves the following three stressful actions:
(a) Breaking apart glued-together cartons.
(b) Sliding the carton off the storage rack pallet while the
pallet is on the forks of a fork truck.
(c) Lowering the carton onto the shipping pallet while holding
the carton at one end, some of the following methods of
abatement and/or combinations of them may be used to deal
with this problem:
(1) Provide a materials handling device to handle the cartons.
(2) Refuse to receive cartons of paper over a certain weight.
(3) Refuse to receive cartons of paper that are glued
together.
(4) Have two men working together in the Warren Department.
(5) Provide a tool to break glued-together cartons apart
and enforce its use.
(6) Rotate warehouse employees.
(7) Hire more employees to reduce the hours warehouse employees
are being required to work.
Abatement Schedule
Step 1 - Effective administrative protection, such as employee training
physical assessment, job rotation, etc., shall be provided as an
interim protective measure until feasible engineering or
permanent administrative controls can be implemented which
will reduce employee exposure to nominal risk.
Step 2 - A written detailed plan of abatement shall be submitted to the
Area Director outlining a schedule for the implementation of
engineering and/or administrative measures to control employee
injury due to annual lifting tests.  Engineering controls to
reduce musculoskeletal stresses include, but are not limited
to:  job redesign, reduction of the lifting aids.  This plan
shall include, at a minumum, target dates for the following
actions, which must be consistent with the dates required by
this citation.
(1)  Evaluation of the conditions, locations and manual lifting
activities that the employees are performing at the onset of
musculoskeletal injuries.
(2) Evaluation of applicable control measures.
(3)  Procurement, installation and operation of selected control
measures;
(4)  Testing and acceptance or modification/redesign of controls;
All proposed control measures  shall  be  evaluated  for  each
particular use by a competent industrial hygienist or other
technically qualified person. 90-day progress reports are
required during the abatement period.
Step 3 - Abatement shall have been completed by the implementation of
feasible engineering and/or administrative controls upon veri-
fication of their effectiveness in reducing the occurrance of
musculoskeletal injuries.

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Apr 16, 1992

Penalty

Initial $1,500

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Apr 16, 1992

Penalty

Initial $1,500 · Current $1,000 Reduced

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Jun 15, 1992

Penalty

Initial $1,500 · Current $1,000 Reduced

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Apr 16, 1992

Penalty

Initial $1,500 · Current $1,000 Reduced

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Apr 16, 1992

Penalty

Initial $1,500 · Current $1,000 Reduced

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Apr 16, 1992

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Apr 16, 1992

Issued

Mar 12, 1992

Abate by

Apr 16, 1992