Team Transport Inc which is part of the Sherman Brothers Trucking Inc family has been cited by OSHA and fined $113,400 for 11 health and safety violations following the death of a worker. An investigation was launched in April after a temporary worker was cleaning out the inside of a tanker without being properly trained, because he was not properly trained he did not know how to vent the tanker, as a result he was found unconscious and died from a lack of oxygen.

Team Transport was given one willful citation for deficiencies of a permit required confined space program. A willful citation is one that is committed with voluntary disregard of knowledge of the law, which directly puts a worker in harms way. Seven serious violations were given out for failure to guard open floor holes, failure to train workers on confined space and hazards, and others.  There were also three other less than serious violations that were handed out.

Team Transport has fifteen days to comply with the requests of OSHA.  It is always tragic when there is a fatality in the workplace.  Many people are out trying to make a living to provide for their families.  There are many places that use temporary workers for many different types of jobs, it is vital that a temp workers background matches the job they are going out for.  It is also the job of the employer to make sure that the temp is up to speed on what is expected of them and that if they are unsure of something that it is thoroughly explained so that incidents like this do not happen.

Source: OSHA