Company and its president plead guilty to fraudulent actions
Alexander Shaporov, former president of training school Valor Security and Investigations, Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty after being charged with selling construction safety certificates and Occupational Safety and Health Administration training cards to about 20,000 untrained individuals, according to Safety+Health magazine.
Shaporov and Valor Security and Investigations each pleaded guilty to one count of attempted enterprise corruption, 10 counts of offering a false instrument and one count of reckless endangerment.
Shaporov is expected to be sentenced Oct. 3 with a promised term of one year in jail, 100 hours of community service and a $100,000 fine. Valor Security and Investigations has lost its security license.
Beginning in December 2019, Valor Security and Investigations arranged with brokers to obtain 40-hour safety cards, supervisor cards and specialized training cards and charged people between $300 and $600 for the fake cards. The cards were sold through April 2023.
In 2022, a New York City worker with fraudulent training paperwork died after falling from the 15th floor of a building under construction.
DOL updates penalty guidelines and aims to improve workplace safety
The Department of Labor updated its guidance regarding penalty and debt collection procedures in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Field Operations Manual to minimize the burden on small businesses and reduce the number of workplace hazards, according to an OSHA news release.
Outlined in the Penalties and Debt Collection section of OSHA’s Field Operations Manual, the new policy increases penalty reductions for small employers, reportedly making it easier for small businesses to invest resources in compliance and hazard abatement. For example, a penalty reduction level of 70% applicable to businesses with 10 or fewer employees has been expanded to include businesses that employ up to 25 employees. Additionally, there are new guidelines for a 15% penalty reduction for employers that immediately take steps to address or correct a hazard.
The policy also states employers that have never been inspected by federal OSHA or an OSHA State Plan—as well as employers that have been inspected during the previous five years and had no serious, willful or failure-to-abate violations—now are eligible for a 20% penalty reduction.
The new guidelines take effect immediately. Penalties issued before July 14, 2025, will remain under the previous penalty structure. Open investigations in which penalties have not yet been issued are covered by the new guidance.
“All employers should be offered the opportunity to comply with regulations that help maintain a safe working environment,” says Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling. “Small employers who are working in good faith to comply with complex federal laws should not face the same penalties as large employers with abundant resources. By lowering penalties on small employers, we are supporting the entrepreneurs that drive our economy and giving them the tools they need to keep our workers safe and healthy on the job while keeping them accountable.”
ABC releases guide regarding safety best practices
Associated Builders and Contractors released its annual guide to construction job-site health and safety best practices. The report is based on 2024 data from organizations that take part in ABC’s STEP Safety Management System. ABC collects each organization’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration Form 300A data and self-assessment of leading indicator practices from its STEP application.
After analyzing the data, which covers more than 1 billion work hours completed by participants in the construction, heavy construction, civil engineering and specialty trades, ABC identified five foundations of industry-leading safety best practices:
- New hire safety orientation. Employers that conduct orientation regarding health and safety culture, systems and processes have total recordable incident rates 52% lower than employers that limit their orientations to basic health and safety compliance. In addition, days away, restricted or transferred rates are reduced 56%.
- Substance-abuse prevention programs. Substance-abuse prevention programs and policies with provisions for drug and alcohol testing, where permitted, led to a 52% reduction in total recordable incident rates and a 55% reduction in days away, restricted or transferred rates.
- Frequent toolbox talks. Employers that conduct daily toolbox talks experience a 78% reduction in total recordable incident rates and a 79% reduction in days away, restricted or transferred rates compared with those that conduct them monthly.
- Top management engagement in safety best practices. Top management engagement led to a 49% reduction in total recordable incident rates and a 52% reduction in days away, restricted or transferred rates.
- Leading indicators. Tracking and reviewing activities to prevent and control injuries, including safety training, led to a 59% reduction in total recordable incident rates and a 60% reduction in days away, restricted or transferred rates.
Report released regarding roofing worker’s death
After three years of investigation, a report was issued regarding the death of a 29-year-old roofing worker who fell 45 feet through a skylight while performing work on a large industrial building, according to Safety+Health magazine. The worker was part of a crew installing roof insulation and skylights and had worked for his employer for 16 months.
The report from the Washington State Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation Program says a framing crew signaled the roofing worker and his co-worker to carry a skylight lid to cover a hole. The roofing workers lifted a 4- by 8-foot lid at opposite ends, but after taking a half step forward, the co-worker heard the roofing worker’s end drop. When he looked back, he did not see the roofing worker, who had fallen 45 feet through a hole they did not know was under the lid. The co-worker and foreman ran downstairs and found the roofing worker unresponsive. Although several workers called 911 and began CPR, the first responders could not save him.
Investigators found the roofing workers were not experienced or trained in skylight installation. They also found visibility on the roof was affected by bundles of insulation; roofing workers were not using fall protection within warning lines where skylight holes were present; and a boom light basket, which had been moved from below the hole before the fall happened, was being used as a fall-catch platform, which was against the manufacturer’s safety guidelines and state fall-protection rules.
To help prevent similar incidents, investigators say employers should do the following:
- Provide fall-protection guardrails, screens, covers, warning lines, safety nets or personal fall-protection systems for roofing workers working around skylights and openings, and keep the area organized.
- Arrive on-site before work begins or appoint a supervisor to conduct a site hazard assessment with workers to identify fall hazards and develop protection methods and procedures in the fall-protection work plan.
- During the pre-job safety meeting, review the site hazard assessment and fall-protection work plan and emphasize workers’ responsibilities to follow fall-protection and roof and skylight safety requirements.
NRCA’s classes, webinars and products offer information to ensure you can keep your employees safe on job sites. For more information, go to nrca.net/safety.
