Safety Violations in Hospitality Industry - Hawaii's latest

Kauai Beach Resort faces $50K in fines for safety violations - Thegardenisland.com: Local

Courtesy of The Garden Island, a Kauai hotel (Kauai Beach Resort) received 14 safety and health violations from the OSHA Honolulu office. Several of the violations were classified as serious, involving storage/handling/labeling of propane tanks, electrical wiring, electrical work practices by untrained maintenance personnel, and training and use of personal respiratory and electrical personal protective equipment (PPE).

The hospitality industry is one of the local emphasis programs in place for the Hawaii OSHA office, and they like to focus on the "behind the scenes" areas of the hotels and resorts. This was a routine inspection, not based on any specific complaint.

In April, the OSHA Honolulu office cited the owner of a Waikiki hotel, giving Halekulani Corp. 17 safety violations, 14 of which were classified as serious. These serious violations involved PPE use and availability, fire extinguisher maintenance and inspection, and the providing protective equipment for electrical work. According to the announcement from OSHA, the hotel owners also "failed to provide training in hazardous waste operations and emergency response standards." There were also issues with labeling, access to electrical panels, and issues with labeling on gas tanks.

A common violation in the hospitality industry is the blood borne pathogens standard - laundry and housekeeping staff may have exposure to blood and other potentially infectious materials (OPIM), and per OSHA, "it is the employer's responsibility to determine which job classifications or specific tasks and procedures involve reasonably anticipated contact with blood or OPIM. "

Courtesy of Curtis Law Construction in Kauai, according to Hawaii OSHA representatives, the following are the top violations in Hawaii construction industry (paraphrased from webpage linked above):

• Fall Protection (lanyards not attached, guardrails and toeboards not sufficient, ladders not secured)
• Trenching (sloping, shoring, and trench boxes not in compliance, no competent person inspections)
• Fork Lifts (no certificates of training, no seat belt or horn in use, load capacity not written on forklift)
• Heavy Equipment (operators not trained properly, no backup alarms, seat belts not being used, brakes not checked, no reflective vests)
• Cranes (operators not certified, no records or maintenance logs, no electrical safety training, rigging issues, swing radius not barricaded)
• Electrical Safety (no grounding pins, unlabeled circuit breakers, no front panel, no open space in front of breaker/area in front of panel blocked, lack of outer insulation)
• General (machine guarding issues, no hazard communication program, insufficient training, PPE not worn or not sufficient)

There is not a Safety/Health Topics page on federal OSHA's website for the hospitality industry, so finding compliance information may be difficult for owners of hotels and other hospitality industry companies. Other locales in the U.S. with a high tourism rate and large number of hospitality industries may notice an uptick in routine inspections at their facilities.