When OSHA Shows Up

[JC-qtde]

“Come with me, and you’ll be… in a world of OSHA violations.”

[dulkoski]

If osha asks you a question, they already know the answer.

[blaisemichael]

One thing I learned as a lead... you NEVER tell Osha you're the lead.

[francisphillipeck]

Getting forklift certified is literally a 45 min class and your boss give you a "test" lol

[jonathanclarkson]

Health Inspector: "You have your food handling license?"
Me, a Walmart Deli employee, confused: "N... no? Should I?"
The Health Inspector, appalled: "Y... yeah."

And then I didn't get one. True story.

[joe_]

I've been an electrician for almost 20yrs and the only time osha showed up on a job I was just starting out and didn't have my apprenticeship license and my lead told me to hide out under the building. Had a nice nap then lunch then about 2hrs of real work. Not too shabby.

[sunshinyblsm]

My foreman just sends us all home when OSHA shows up. Mostly because a few of us were stunt driving forklifts when they showed up once.

[AtomicZaku]

OSHA shows up, Fortunate Son starts playing in the distance

[dheethbar]

Don't let OSHA go to any Dollar Tree. They'll see all the cases of product blocking the most visible fire exit.

[MTGunners]

You drop EVERYTHING and go on a union mandated brake that lasts exactly as long as OSHA is on site for.

[tyrannosaurusimperator]

I worked for a manufacturing company where the head of security bragged about kicking OSHA offsite. It turns out if you refuse them entry because they won't put on steel toes or wear a hard hat correctly, they look really bad in front of their supervisor and you stop getting visits for a while.

[nono-choy]

I love how safe and tidy wverything auddenly becomes when the word "Inspection" comes up

[doylehargraves]

When osha shows up I pack my shit up and head to the fucking house

[steve.o]

I worked for osha for 10 years out of kentucky and ohio, I can confirm that's how some companies were. They would slide a few 20s my way, like, heres 40 bucks, you didn't see anything. Never take the money, because now you just committed, and contributed to a federal offense of bribery to a government official of safety, and accepting a bribery while representing a federal safety organization. That's like up to 15 years in prison. Now i was pretty fair, told them I'd take it, if i was off the clock. I was never off the clock. And i would never enter a site without a warrant and at least 1 law enforcement officer, "I've actually been attacked for just showing up on a safety call". Osha doesn't just show up, it takes about 5 calls or reports in order for osha to show up. Most osha laws were made to protect the worker. I've been to a few jobs where i had to investigate why someone died, the body is gone, but the blood isn't. Or someone had a glass furnace blow up, and had to investigate why 2 people got burnt up, employers don't always care about your safety. I'd make a list of things I've seen that violated osha law, The only time i would say anything, is if it was really unsafe, or broken, and someone was trying to use it. The biggest thing was the lock out tag out procedure, id bust an ass for that. Yes i wrote you a $1200 fine for not doing that, takes 2 minutes, there is absolutely no mercy for laziness. But for forklifts, as long as the safety checklist is filled out, most inspectors won't go any further than that. Because there really isn't a set law on license for forklifts, as long as you're certified through the company, most inspectors won't even care. And if you're really nice to them, they overlook a lot of little things.

[michaelrogers]

Was working on a 13 story building and everytime OSHA showed up the elevator operator would tell us through the speaker system so whatever fucked shit we were doing we could just pretend we weren't

[dcsniper]

Forklift certification 5 stars, Cleanliness 1/2 star

[leopardone]

If OSHA showed up at the DC I worked at years ago then I pity them for having to inspect that dump and skip lunch. Place is a time machine. The lifts and powered equipment too. Like warehousing in the 70s.



The 1870s. Are you horselift certified?

[tbjylud]

I hurt my back in late 2020 at a warehouse. They had a shelf 40 feet in length with 4 tier shelves on it, the bottom of which was about 19" off from the floor and the top shelf was over 6 feet. We were lifting 30 pound packages of sodas (24 packs of 20 ounce sodas) up onto the top shelf and down onto the lower shelf on a daily basis a ridiculous amount of times. When I hurt my back, they put me on light duty in another department. I was lead of my department before that. After 3 months, HR came to me one day and sent me home halfway through the work day. They said their insurance wouldn't pay for any more treatments for my back. They also tried to blame my low back injury on existing medical issues that were unrelated and that I had for about a year before the injury and was working with them. I got an attorney and sued them. I made a complaint to my local OSHA office who 'called' the employer and the employer told them that the department was walked for hazards and they were corrected. The HR manager replied to OSHA with photos of 'lifting charts' and stated that they were lifting properly and that we were trained on proper lifting procedures.

My response back to OSHA was, "Show me where any of those charts posted on the board talk about lifting 30 pounds above the head that high and below the knees that low. They don't have one because they know it isn't safe to lift that weight to that upper and lower height all day."

It took me almost 2 years, but OSHA finally inspected in person and saw that the employer had lied. They issued the HR manager a hazard alert letter stating that employees in that department were exposed to musculoskeletal disorders while lifting up to 30 pounds above shoulder height to approximately 74" for several hours daily and that we were required to bend to the lower shelf at a height of 19" throughout the day with a similar weight of 30 pounds.


OSHA wouldn't cite the employer because OSHA claimed that no OSHA standard applied and said it was not considered appropriate at the time to invoke Section 5(a)(1), the General Duty Clause of the Occupational Safety Health Act, which would have issued a citation to the employer. They did tell them that the work area was unsafe, however.

[DavidJ]

I'll never understood how the big boss managed to convince the workers that OSHA was the bad guy. OSHA was literally defending the workers

[RealBelisariusCawl]

We had an OSHA inspector show up once while the boss was directing the guys on how best to properly balance on the fork truck to use it as an impromptu scissor lift for a welding job to repair a roof beam of some such shit. I dunno, that wasn’t my area.

All I know is that we didn’t have a job anymore after that day and it was probably for the best.

Edit: I’m drunk as fuck rn and just saw that this stupid anecdote about an old job of mine has almost 10k likes. Wtf.