OSHA Violations

The head of OSHA's enforcement division has reported that among its top 10 most frequent violations are

1. Scaffolding - with over 9,000 violations per year
2. Fall Protection - with over 6700 violations per year
3. Hazard Communication - with over 6300 violations\
4. Electrical - with over 5500 violations
5. Machine guarding - with over 2300 violations. 

These numbers vastly understate the problem. They mostly reflect when someone was needlessly injured on the job due to OSHA violations - and there was an investigation due to the severity of the injury. For most of these kinds of violations of safety rules, any work injury that results can be potentially disabling. In Tennessee, OSHA violations are investigated and enforced by the State, but there are far too few inspectors to eliminate the unnecessary risks associated with scaffolding, falls, electrical wiring, and machine guarding.