Ashley Furniture Faces $1.76 Million Fines over Worker Safety

February 3, 2015  by in Industry, Legal   

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a statement Monday that says over three and a half years, workers at the company’s Arcadia, Wis., facility had suffered more than 1,000 work-related injuries. 

“Ashley Furniture has created a culture that values production and profit over worker safety, and employees are paying the price,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. “Safety and profits are not an ‘either, or’ proposition. Successful companies across this nation have both.”

Ashley has said in a statement that it “strongly disagrees with each and every one of the agency's assertions and believes the proposed penalties are grossly inappropriate and over-zealous. To clarify, OSHA's announcement is not a finding of fact, but rather only an allegation, Ashley strongly disagrees with each and every opinion of the agency, and looks forward to the opportunity to present our evidence in the proper setting.”

OSHA cited an incident in July 2014 in which a worker lost three fingers while operating a “woodworking machine without required safety mechanisms in place.” Of the injuries recorded, more than 100 were caused by similar machinery.

Following that incident, OSHA conducted an inspection of the factory and identified 38 violations ranging from “willful”, “repeated”, and “serious”. OSHA also placed Ashley in the Severe Violator Enforcement Program, which focuses on “inspecting employees who have demonstrated indifference” to the worker safety act.

The 12 willful and 12 repeated violations stem from Ashley not taking necessary steps to protect workers from being injured by moving machine parts. OSHA also said the company  did not prevent machines from unintentionally starting when workers were performing tooling and blade changes on woodworking machinery, and also failed to provide adequate safety mechanisms to prevent contact with those moving parts.

Fourteen serious violations including not training employees on safety procedures and hazards present when servicing machinery. The administration said the company also lacked adequate drenching facilities for workers exposed to corrosive materials.  

A “willful”violation is one committed with intentional, knowing or voluntary disregard for the law’s requirement or with indifference to employee safety and health. OSHA issues repeated violations if an employer previously was cited for the same or a similar violation of any standard, regulation, rule or order at any other facility in federal enforcement states within the last five years.

The 52-page “citation and notification of penalty” against Ashley is available online. 

With annual sales approaching $4 billion, the company employs about 20,000 workers in 30 U.S. locations.

Ashley has 15 days from receipt of the citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before and independent review commission.

Below is Ashley’s statement, in its entirety, on the matter:

Arcadia, Wisconsin – Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. strongly disputes the allegations issued today by the U.S. Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regarding the company's safety operations in its Arcadia, Wisconsin facility. The Company strongly disagrees with each and every one of the agency's assertions and believes the proposed penalties are grossly inappropriate and over-zealous. To clarify, OSHA's announcement is not a finding of fact, but rather only an allegation, Ashley strongly disagrees with each and every opinion of the agency, and looks forward to the opportunity to present our evidence in the proper setting.

“At Ashley, each employee's safety and well-being is an absolute priority,” said Steve Ziegeweid, Ashley Director of Health and Safety. “In the past five years, Ashley has lowered our incident rate by 14 percent and our ‘days away, restricted or transferred' rate by 28 percent – demonstrating our commitment to real and tangible improvements in safety across our company.”

Ashley Furniture has been in discussions for several weeks with OSHA officials in Wisconsin regarding operations at our Arcadia facility, specifically regarding inspectors' conclusions stemming from inspections in 2009 and their subsequent opinions regarding safety features and procedures of certain machinery. Ashley trains our employees to follow applicable “lock-out/tag-out” procedures when maintaining or repairing certain equipment, which requires machines to be completely disabled while certain activities are performed. Ashley also trains our employees to follow applicable safeguards for “minor servicing” of equipment, as provided by established rules and regulations, such has changing drill bits and other routine operations. Ashley has continued to disagree with inspectors' conclusions regarding the application of the appropriate procedures – that is, when full “lock-out/tag-out” rules are necessary, and when “minor servicing” rules are appropriate. Despite our best efforts, we continue to disagree with the agency's conclusions and the inspectors' interpretations of various regulations. The agency's document uses terms like “serious,” “repeat” and “willful” – which are definitions in their regulations. We do not believe such regulatory terminology reflects Ashley's proven commitment to safety.

To provide perspective to the statistics noted in OSHA's news release, Ashley highlights four important considerations:

• First, Ashley reported about 880 individual cases of all injuries and illnesses during the three years from 2012 to 2014 at its Arcadia facility. These numbers are provided by Ashley on self-reports that we file on each and every employee illness or injury – including certain strains, sprains, and various cuts and bruises. This demonstrates the detail to which Ashley focuses on the safety and well-being of each of our 4,500 employees in Arcadia.

• Second, less than one-in-four of these cases required any time away from work. While any injury or illness is unacceptable at Ashley, it is clear that a vast majority of the cases are relatively minor in nature, demonstrating our achievements to-date and our focus on continuous improvement across all aspects of our operations. The most common injury was muscle strains and sprains, which has been the focus of Ashley's ongoing ergonomics programs.

• Third, employees logged more than 22.5 million working hours in Arcadia during the last three years, which underscores the magnitude of our responsibility to employee safety and well-being.

• Lastly, in the past five years, Ashley has lowered our incident rate by 14 percent and our ‘days away, restricted or transferred' rate by 28 percent, demonstrating our commitment to real and tangible improvements in safety across our company. At Ashley, each employee's safety and well-being is an absolute priority.

“While we are disappointed by our inability to resolve our differences with the agency, we remain confident in our safety programs and procedures, as well as in our commitment to continuous improvement and commitment to employee safety and well-being,” Ziegeweid said. “We look forward to the opportunity to present our evidence to OSHA's allegations in the proper legal setting.”