Valenti’s Bakery LLC has been fined $385K by government regulators for safety hazards in its New Jersey workplace.
U.S. Department of Labor dove deep into the bakery’s inner workings to find that safety concerns that had lingered from a previous investigation in 2023 had still not been resolved.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) initiated the follow-up inspection in May 2024 after the regulators were not provided with evidence of progress on the hazards.
The 2023 inspection was motivated by an event involving a Valenti employee “suffered two partial finger amputations after coming into contact with an automatic blade,” said the report.
“Valenti’s Bakery failed to take the necessary steps to protect its employees, even after a preventable life-altering injury underscored the hazards in its workplace,” said OSHA Area Office Director Lisa Levy in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey.
Bakery fails to action safety hazards
OSHA’s machine guarding and control of hazardous energy webpages guide those operating heavy mechanical equipment on the safety guidelines expected of a professional workplace.
The regulator further found in the 2024 revisit that Valenti’s had “failed to develop, document and use lockout/tagout procedures for the control of hazardous mechanical energy, which resulted in the agency issuing a notification of failure to abate.”
It was reported that Investigators also issued two willful citations for “blocked and obstructed exit routes; one repeat citation for machine guarding; and six serious citations for exposure to fall hazards from a ladder and unprotected side and edges.”
Director Levy concluded, “Employers have a responsibility to correct known dangers promptly, not disregard them and put workers at further risk.”
OSHA has been vigilant across America in the workplace as Due reported recently that an Alabama stonemason was hit for $30k in fees for a fatal injury inquiry.
The company, Huntsville Granite and Marble LLC, was the scene of a fatal accident where a slab of stone weighing thousands of pounds hit a 33-year-old employee.
The regulator sadly stated that this fatal and horrific accident could have been avoided as a result of their investigation. Huntsville Granite and Marble LLC was established in 2006 and is a family-owned enterprise in North Alabama and Southern Tennessee.
Image: Pexels.
