OSHA goes easy - After meeting with employer only, it often reverses findings, cuts fines - By Alexandra Berzon, Las Vegas Sun
Another thing could possibly have saved his life. OSHA regulations call for a net or a temporary floor every two floors below employees working on steel erection. Billingsley, however, plummeted nearly twice that far because neither was in place.
OSHA issued three citations carrying fines totaling $13,500. But then SME met privately with the agency in what’s known as an informal conference. No family was invited. Billingsley’s union local did not send a representative.
Without offering any additional documented evidence, the company blamed Billingsley. He wasn’t supposed to be in the area, it said, contradicting the findings of the investigation.
OSHA withdrew the citations.
Billingsley now bore sole responsibility for his death.
Cole was mystified. “The everyday Joe Carpenter is not aware of how fallible the system is,” she said.