Employees at a Waterville auto body manufacturing plant repeatedly informed management of fall and noise hazards but these reports went ignored until the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened an inspection on Oct. 1, 2020, in response to a complaint.

Now, The Shyft Group Duramag LLC – formerly F3 MFG Inc. – faces $393,992 in proposed fines for not addressing these and other hazards that placed employees at risk. OSHA cited the plant for two willful and 10 serious violations.

“Our inspectors found plant employees without fall protection working atop truck bodies and others exposed to excess noise levels while steam cleaning,” said OSHA Area Director David McGuan in Augusta, Maine. “Management’s knowledge of these hazards and their failure to correct them led us to cite these conditions as willful violations.”

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