In February 2022, a 63-year-old employee was killed at a 3M (NYSE: MMM) plant in Alexandria, Minnesota. The employee grew to become entangled with a machine in the course of the in a single day shift.
Just a few months after the accident, the corporate assessed its tools at U.S. and Canadian crops. In keeping with OSHA Regional Administrator Invoice Donovan, after 3M accomplished its investigation, it “decided powered rollers have been hazards in want of security enchancment.”
In Might 2023, a employee was serving to arrange a plastic extrusion line at a 3M manufacturing plant in southwestern Wisconsin and died after turning into caught in a machine’s rotating rollers. In keeping with OSHA, the dying in Prairie du Chien might have been averted if the corporate had adopted federal office security rules and heeded its personal recommendation.
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OSHA investigators discovered that 3M violated federal rules for the management of hazardous power, extra generally generally known as lockout/tagout, throughout machine setup, servicing and operation. The corporate additionally didn’t implement power management steps when workers arrange the manufacturing line by threading fiber materials by way of powered rollers by hand whereas the rollers have been rotating.
Employees on the plant have been even allowed to bypass machine guarding to chop and take away wrapped fibers from rotating powered rollers and to take away fibers from the ground, which uncovered them to caught-in hazards.
The protection company assessed $312,518 in proposed penalties for 2 willful security violations.
The corporate has 15 enterprise days to conform, request a casual convention or contest the findings.
IEN reached out to 3M, and the corporate supplied the next assertion:
“The protection and well being of all our workers is our prime precedence, and we’re deeply saddened by this tragic incident. Over the past six months, we have now labored carefully with federal office security and well being regulators in reference to their inspection of our Prairie du Chien worksite. As well as, 3M has continued to implement enhancements and investments to assist forestall comparable incidents sooner or later and communicated these enhancements to our workers on the worksite.
“We’re presently within the strategy of evaluating the Occupational Security Well being Administration’s Quotation and Notification of Penalty, and we’ll proceed to work with the Division of Labor to deal with this matter.”
3M relies in Maplewood, Minnesota, and operates 40 factories within the U.S. The corporate employs some 34,000 employees within the U.S., together with about 500 in Prairie du Chien.
In keeping with OSHA’s Donovan, “The corporate should handle these hazards instantly to guard workers from severe accidents or worse.”
