The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Refton, Penn.,-based Quality Stone Veneer Inc. with eight safety violations, including one willful, for scaffolding hazards found during stone installation activities at a residential construction site in Hegins. OSHA has proposed $154,440 in penalties following an inspection that was initiated after a compliance officer driving by the site observed workers on a scaffold that lacked fall protection measures.

The willful violation is failing to implement a fall arrest system or provide guardrails for employees working on a scaffold more than 10 feet above the next lower level. A willful violation is one committed with intentional knowing or voluntary disregard for the law's requirements, or with plain indifference to worker safety and health. The citation carries a $69,300 penalty.

Three repeat violations involve a failure to fully plank or deck platforms on all working levels of the scaffold; provide a safe means of access to and from scaffold platforms that are more than two feet above or below an access point; and provide competent supervision and direction whenever a scaffold is erected, moved, dismantled or altered. The citations carry penalties of $69,300. A repeat violation exists when an employer previously has been cited for the same or a similar violation of a standard, regulation, rule or order at any other facility in federal enforcement states within the last five years. Similar violations were cited in 2011 at a site in Falling Waters, W. Va.

Four serious violations involve failing to ensure that scaffold platforms extend at least six inches over the centerline support; brace scaffold frames and panels to secure vertical members together laterally; and have a qualified person train workers who use scaffolds as well as workers who erect, disassemble, move, operate, repair, maintain or inspect scaffolds. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known. The citations carry penalties of $15,840.