GEORGETOWN, Texas – Three roofing workers employed by Provencher Home Improvement of Beverly, Massachusetts were hospitalized after a two-story fall from a scaffold platform that broke beneath them, according to OSHA. Provencher Home Improvement was operating as a subcontractor for A. C. Castle Construction on the roofing project at a Wenham jobsite location.

It doesn’t help penalty negotiations with OSHA when the home page of a website features a photo of numerous scaffold-related OSHA violations, as does the website of A. C. Castle construction as of April 16, 2015.

The incident occurred as the employees performed roofing work on a ladder-jack scaffold. A spruce plank used as the platform could not support the workers’ weight, was not graded for scaffold use, and the plank’s invoice was clearly marked “not for scaffold use.”

OSHA found numerous violations in its inspection and has cited the company’s owner Daryl J. Provencher (the subcontractor) with fines totaling $294,500, but A. C. Castle Construction gets the same fine.

The investigation also found that the operations of A.C. Castle Construction Co., Inc. were sufficiently integrated with Provencher’s to render the two a single employer of the affected workers.

The three workers, who fell 19 feet to the ground as a result of the incident, were taken to local hospitals for treatment. Two were admitted as inpatients and the third received outpatient treatment. Their injuries included spinal, eye, facial, chest and rib fractures, broken bones, broken ribs and a punctured lung.

“While the affected workers here were nominally employed by Provencher, A.C. Castle exercised a degree of control and oversight over Provencher’s operations sufficient to render the two a single employer under the OSH Act, responsible as one entity for their employees’ safety,” said M. Patricia Smith, Solicitor of Labor. “We will hold business entities responsible as employers where the circumstances so warrant, even in the face of claims by some to the contrary.”

Safety First Consulting helps businesses identify OSHA compliance deficiencies in their workplaces, manage their safety programs, and become accountable for the results. In addition to offering custom written safety programs for companies, Safety First Consulting provides required safety training, industrial hygiene sampling, noise sampling, and workplace inspections.