OSHA Fine Industry that does not allow employees and customers to wear masks

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a $ 136,000 fine against a tax preparer in Massachusetts who banned employees from wearing masks at work amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The fine against Lynn’s Liberty Tax Service is the largest fine OSHA has imposed on COVID-19, an agency spokesman confirmed. This is probably a sign of more aggressive maintenance of safety in the workplace 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 tax service, Ariana Murrell-Rosario, a “willful refusal to introduce basic precautions ”to protect employees against the coronavirus.

In a telephone interview, Murrell-Rosario admitted that he did not allow his employees to wear masks and forbade customers to wear them as well. She said masks are a “deadly” health hazard and “This country must be banned.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear masks “wherever they will be with other people” to slow the spread of COVID-19. The idea that masks make people sick themselves has flourished in some corners of the internet, but public health experts have done so widely. unmask it.

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

A $ 136,000 fine may not sound too hefty, but it is far greater than most fines issued by OSHA during the Trump administration. These fines were usually in the low five figures, even in cases of major outbreaks at meat packaging plants. After four employees of Smithfield meat packaging plants died at COVID-19 last year, OSHA issued a fine of only $ 13,494.

In the Massachusetts case, the agency increased the fine by considering it an ‘intentional’ offense, resulting in a higher price than standard fines. “Intentionally” means that the employer knowingly did not comply with the law or a clear indifference to the health of the workers.

Many security experts in the workplace criticized the leadership in the Donald Trump administration for not achieving these big card fines, arguing that they could send a message to other employers that they had to follow basic safety protocols. They also said the agency was moving too slowly with issuing fines during a public health crisis, and it took nearly six months to hand out quotes.

In the Massachusetts case, investigators moved faster. They opened the investigation on March 17 quoted the company three weeks later, on April 8th.

OSHA regulations are mostly very specific, but there are no rules in the books that are explicitly related to COVID-19. Thus, the agency issued most of its fines under the ‘general duty’ clause, a rule that is broadly worded that an employer must provide a workplace ‘free of recognized hazards’.

Safety advocates are urging OSHA to issue a temporary emergency standard requiring employers to follow specific guidelines on the virus, subject to fines. The Trump administration has not issued such a standard, and so far neither has the Biden government, despite the fact that it would appear early on.

Murrell-Rosario said none of her employees had fallen ill yet and that the complaints raised by the investigation were likely to come from customers who were told not to wear masks. Initial OSHA fines are often reduced, and Murrell-Rosario said she plans to fight them.