Commission Issues Decision in StormForce of Jacksonville, LLC, OSHRC Docket No. 19-0593
An OSHA compliance officer inspected the roofing project’s worksite, a single-family home, on the second and final day of the job. The crew at the worksite was employed by Florida Roofing Experts, Inc. (FRE), which in turn was a subcontractor of StormForce, the roofing project’s general contractor. Since 2015, StormForce has exclusively used FRE (or FRE’s predecessor, Great White Construction) for all roofing jobs—approximately 600 to 700 per year. At the time of OSHA’s inspection, a five-member FRE crew was working on the house’s roof and no StormForce employee was present on site, though StormForce’s site foreman—the only StormForce employee to visit the worksite—had inspected the project that morning and the day before. After observing the crew’s work, the compliance officer concluded that the crew was not using any form of fall protection. OSHA subsequently issued StormForce a citation for that failure as a “controlling employer” under the Secretary’s multi-employer citation policy.