OSHA fines company for not allowing employees and customers to wear masks

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined a $ 136,000 taxpayer in Massachusetts who allegedly banned employees from wearing masks at work during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lynn’s Liberty Tax Service fine is the largest fine imposed by OSHA in relation to COVID-19, a spokesman for the agency confirmed. It’s likely a sign of more aggressive workplace safety enforcement now that Biden’s administration is in charge.

Galen Blanton, a regional administrator for OSHA in Boston, said in a statement that the owner of the IRS, Ariana Murrell-Rosario, demonstrated a “deliberate refusal to implement basic safeguards ”to protect employees against the corona virus.

In a telephone interview, Murrell-Rosario acknowledged that she did not allow employees to wear masks and forbade customers to wear them as well. She said masks are a “deadly” health hazard and “Should be banned from this country.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear masks “wherever they are around other people” to slow the spread of COVID-19. The idea that the masks themselves are making people sick is thriving in some corners of the internet, but public health experts are doing so widely invalidated

Murrell-Rosario said there are typically five or six people working in each of the two offices. She said she will continue to ban the use of masks despite the OSHA fine.

A fine of $ 136,000 may not sound too high, but it is much higher than most fines imposed by OSHA during the Trump administration. Those fines were typically in the low five figures, even in the case of major outbreaks at meat packers. After four employees at the Smithfield meat packing plant died from COVID-19 last year, OSHA imposed a fine of just $ 13,494.

In the Massachusetts case, the agency increased the fine by considering it a “deliberate” violation, accompanied by a higher price tag than standard fines. “Intentional” means that the employer knowingly failed to comply with the law or showed “obvious indifference” to workers’ health.

Many workplace safety experts criticized the leadership in the Donald Trump administration for not counting on these hefty fines, arguing that they could have sent a message to other employers to adhere to basic safety protocols. They also said the agency was slow to issue fines during a public health crisis, often taking nearly six months to issue citations.

In the Massachusetts case, investigators went faster. They opened the investigation on March 17 and cited the company three weeks later, on April 8.

OSHA regulations are usually very specific, but there are no rules for the books specifically related to COVID-19. That’s why the agency has imposed most of the fines based on the “general duty” clause, a broadly worded rule that says an employer must provide a workplace that is “free from recognized hazards.”

Safety advocates have pressured OSHA to issue a temporary emergency standard requiring employers to follow specific guidelines about the virus, subject to fines. The Trump administration has not enacted such a standard, and so far the Biden administration has not, despite saying early on that it likely would.

Murrell-Rosario said none of her employees had yet become ill and the complaints prompting the investigation likely came from customers who were told not to wear masks indoors. Initial OSHA fines are often cut, and Murrell-Rosario said she plans to fight them.