Is Your Restaurant's Workplace Safety Act in Order?

A refrigerator repairman was discovered unconscious in the closed, walk-in freezer. Nine 55-pound blocks of dry ice had been placed in the freezer to lower temperatures to help preserve food while the freezer was being repaired. As the blocks evaporated, dangerous levels of carbon dioxide built up in the closed freezer and overcame the repairman, who died the next day. The citations address each employer's alleged failure to adequately protect its employees against excess levels of carbon dioxide.

Both the restaurant and the company that employed the repairman were fined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for allowing their employees to enter an atmosphere that posed "an immediate danger to life and health due to excess carbon dioxide levels inside the freezer and that they allowed the workers to do so without appropriate respiratory protection, without adequate training to recognize the hazard posed by the dry ice and carbon dioxide and without stationing an employee outside the freezer to monitor and provide assistance to the worker inside."

In addition, the restaurant was also cited for not posting a danger tag on the freezer, lack of a hazard communication program, and failing to address how outside contractor employees would be informed of hazardous materials and conditions and appropriate safeguards, an OSHA spokesperson said. The restaurant faced $49,000 in proposed penalties.

Because restaurants tend to have an excellent safety record when compared with other industries, many restaurant owners/operators have a tendency to neglect or forget the various federal and state laws governing workplace safety. This, however, can prove to be a costly mistake. Indeed, from taking steps to prevent simple accidents, such as employee slips and falls, to making information available to employees about the existence of potentially harmful chemicals in the workplace, restaurants need to remain mindful of existing federal and state workplace-safety rules.