OSHA Top 10 Most Cited Safety Violations 2020

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has released its preliminary data for the 2020 Most Cited Violations for the fiscal year of October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2020. 

For the 10th consecutive fiscal year, Fall Protection – General Requirements was OSHA’s most frequently cited standard. There weren’t many noticeable differences from last year’s rankings, but Ladders did rise to number five from spot six, while Respiratory Protection increased two spots from fifth place to bump Scaffolding down a spot. 

You can watch OSHA’s announcement, in conjunction with the National Safety Council’s (NSC) “Safety+Health” magazine here.

The Following Were the Top 10 Most Cited Safety Violations in the 2020 Fiscal Year: 

1. Fall Protection – General Requirements

2. Hazard Communication

3. Respiratory Protection

4. Scaffolding

5. Ladders

6. Lockout/Tagout

7. Powered Industrial Trucks

8. Fall Protection – Training Requirements

9. Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection

10. Machine Guarding

Patrick Kapust, Deputy Director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs,  recommends that business owners, operations managers, safety managers, those who work in EHS consultant roles and those who work for environmental health and safety consulting firms to use the top 10 list as a place to start for where to implement safety procedures and create safer work environments.

Read on for details of the types of violations within each category, the number of citations per violation and the most common industries violations were found in. 

1. Fall Protection – General Requirements 

There were 5,424 violations for this construction standard, including: 

• Not having fall protection at residential construction activities
• Unprotected sides and edges where fall protection was not provided
• Violations for roofing work on low slope roofs
• Lack of steep roof fall protection
• Holes that required fall protection

OSHA found these violations with roofing, framing and masonry contractors, as well as in commercial and institutional building construction and new single-family housing construction. 

2. Hazard Communication 

There were 3,199 violations for this general industry standard, including:

• Not having a written hazard communication program and implementation of that hazard communication program
• Lack of employee information and training for the hazard communication program standards
• Not having and maintaining readily accessible safety data sheets, labels and other forms of warnings on containers of hazardous chemicals
• Violation of requirements to develop safety data sheets and maintain copies of them

OSHA saw these violations in manufacturing, construction and general industries, as well as with masonry contractors and roofing contractors and in automotive body/paint/repair and maintenance, general automotive repair and machine shops. 

3. Respiratory Protection

There were 2,649 violations for this general industry standard that’s also cited in the construction industry. Violations included:

• Lack of medical evaluations, due to the requirement that employees must be medically cleared in order to wear a respirator, so the respirator doesn’t introduce another hazard to the employee
• Failure to have a written respiratory program that encompasses elements including training, types of respirators and so forth
• Lack of fit testing prior to respirator use and annually thereafter, because the respirator must appropriately fit the employee’s face
• Lack of respiratory protection programs even where respirator use isn’t required
• Violations of general requirements for respirator selection, to ensure respirators are the appropriate respirators for that particular hazard at that workplace

OSHA found these violations in automotive body/paint/interior repair and maintenance shops, cut stone and stone product manufacturing, metal coating/engraving manufacturers, masonry contractors and nursing care facilities.

4. Scaffolding 

There were 2,538 violations for this construction standard, including:

• Violations of fall protection requirements
• Lack of general access requirements
• Scaffolds not being fully planked and decked on platforms
• Scaffolds that weren’t restrained from tipping
• Lack of installed guardrails on scaffolds to prevent falling off

These violations were found among framing contractors, roofing contractors and commercial and institutional building construction worksites.  

5. Ladders 

There were 2,129 violations for this construction standard, including:

• Violations of use of portable ladder requirements
• Ladders being used for purposes they weren’t designed to be used for, such as using them for a platform
• Top steps of ladders being used as a step
• Portable ladder defects weren’t removed from service, as any time there’s a defect in a ladder, it must be removed from service so employees don’t use the ladder
• Employees carrying objects and loads where they could lose their balance and fall

OSHA found these violations among framing contractors, masonry contractors, roofing contractors, siding contractors and new single-family housing contractors.

6. Lockout/Tagout 

There were 2,065 violations for this general industry standard, including:

• Violations of energy control procedures that are required for each type of equipment where repairs are conducted to ensure they’re locked out and tagged out appropriately
• Lack of general training and communication on lockout/tagout procedures and programs
• Lack of periodic inspection of lockout/tagout procedures and making sure they remain adequate after they’ve been implemented and employees know what they need to do to ensure that equipment has been locked out appropriately
• Violations in energy control programs, including the appropriate training, procedures and evaluation of programs
• Not having the right lockout/tagout devices for various types of equipment
• Violations in the application of the control, since the lock has to be on the control device for it to work

OSHA found these violations in plastic product manufacturing, saw mills, machine shops, wood container and pallet manufacturing, and fabricated metal manufacturing. 

7. Powered Industrial Trucks

There were 1,932 violations for this general industry standard, which included: 

• Lack of operator training and safe operations of powered industrial trucks
• Not having the appropriate training to ensure operators have been trained properly on the type of truck they’ll be using
• Lack of refresher training, which is required every 3 years, as well as is required after an employee has been observed operating a truck unsafely
• Lack of evaluation of training
• Lack of certification of operator training requirements
• Operators operating an industrial truck that is in need of repair or service
• Lack of maintenance of industrial trucks, where repairs must be made by authorized personnel

OHSA found these violations in work environments including general warehousing and storage, cut stone and product manufacturing, and recyclable material merchant wholesalers.

8. Fall Protection – Training Requirements

There were 1,621 violations for this construction standard, including:

• Lack of training programs for fall protection
• Not maintaining written certificates of training
• Lack of training programs by a competent person
• Lack of retraining after inadequacies are found
• Lack of retraining in general

OSHA found these violations in environments similar to where Fall Protection – General Requirements violations were found.

9. Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection 

There were 1,369 violations for this construction standard, including:

• Lack of use of appropriate face and eye protection
• Lack of use of appropriate eye protection that provides side protection
• Violations of general requirements including use of appropriate prescription lenses and practices
• Violations of criteria for protective eye and face protection

These citations were found among framing contractors, roofing contractors, masonry contractors and siding contractors.

10. Machine Guarding

There were 1,313 violations, including:

• Violations of points of operation guarding
• Violations of anchoring of fixed machinery
• Violations of general requirements
• Exposure of blades

These violations were found in work environments including machine shops, plastic products manufacturing, fabricated structural metal manufacturing and sheet metal working manufacturing.

Avoid OSHA Safety Violations: Work with an EHS Consultant

According to EHS Daily Advisor, a recent Labor Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audit of OSHA found during the pandemic in 2020, the agency received 15% more complaints year-over-year. To avoid having your business or organization become part of these violation statistics, enlist an EHS professional to ensure you’re following all OSHA safety requirements. 

Yellowbird has on-demand EHS consultants who will evaluate your business so you avoid violations and keep workers safe. Learn about our EHS services for companies.