Scofflaw Rockland Roofing Contractor Faces New OSHA Penalty Of $687K

NANUET, NY — With two employees dead in three years from workplace falls, and already facing millions in fines and penalties, Rockland County-based ALJ Home Improvement now faces more.

A year after the second deadly fall, the U.S. Department of Labor cited the company with eight violations – four willful and four serious –and proposed a $687,536 penalty for lack of fall and head protection and violations of multiple standards.

"Since 2019, two employees of ALJ Home Improvement have suffered fatal falls and ALJ continues to callously ignore the law and blatantly jeopardize the safety of its workers," Occupational Safety and Health Administration Area Director, Lisa Levy, said Feb. 3. "The company repeatedly refuses to comply with OSHA standards and make worker safety a priority, choosing instead to put profit over the lives of its employees. The reality is that a safe workplace is actually a more profitable workplace."

By law, residential construction employers generally must protect workers against falls with guardrails, safety nets or personal fall arrest systems when they work 6 feet or more above lower levels, as well as provide personal protective equipment to protect against bodily injury.

The newest citations against ALJ are based on an inspection just six months after Feb. 8 when an employee died falling from the roof of a three-story residential construction project in Spring Valley, according to OSHA officials.

When an inspector arrived at a Ho-Ho-Kus worksite in August, where ALJ was re-roofing a single-family house, he saw three employees on a roof 18 feet above ground without required fall protection, OSHA officials said.

It was the eighth federal workplace safety inspection in the past four years. In the first seven, OSHA identified 33 violations, nine of them willful failures to provide required fall protection.

ALJ Home Improvement is active in Rockland, Orange, Westchester and Dutchess counties in New York and Bergen County in New Jersey with office in Nanuet.

After the second fatal fall — the first was in 2019, in Sullivan County — OHSA said that ALJ failed to provide training or make sure effective fall protection safeguards were used.

The company has 15 business days from receipt of these newest citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

SEE:

• $1.34 Million Penalty Added To Nanuet Contractor Fines After 2nd Death
• Rockland Roofing Contractor Exposed Workers To Deadly Falls