Valenti’s Bakery LLC, a Patterson, New Jersey, commercial bakery, has reached a settlement agreement with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to resolve litigation after a May 2024 follow-up investigation at the company’s facility found previously identified hazards hadn’t been addressed.
OSHA initially investigated Valenti’s Bakery in June 2023 after an employee suffered partial finger amputations. During a May 2024 follow-up inspection to confirm the employer had corrected previously cited hazards, the agency instead found the hazards at the facility remained unabated.
The settlement agreement between OSHA and Valenti’s Bakery affirmed the citations issued after the follow-up inspection, which included two willful citations, one repeat citation, six serious citations, and one failure-to-abate citation. The company agreed to pay a $180,000 penalty.
Valenti’s Bakery agreed, as part of the settlement, to implement enhanced abatement measures that include the following:
- Establish an employee-management safety and health committee.
- Retain a third-party safety consultant to perform regular safety audits.
- Post safety and health signage, and provide appropriate safety training in both English and Spanish.
- Implement a daily safety checklist, and install security cameras to enhance exit route safety.
- Implement new engineering controls.
- Perform spot checks to ensure proper use of lockout/tagout procedures.
OSHA’s mechanical safety standards—lockout/tagout (control of hazardous energy) and machine guarding—are among its most cited standards. The lockout/tagout standard (29 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) §1910.147) was OSHA’s fifth most cited standard in fiscal year (FY) 2024, with 2,443 violations. The machine guarding standard (§1910.212) was the tenth most cited, with 1,541 violations.
FMCSA driver English proficiency enforcement authorized
Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy signed an order on May 20 authorizing new guidelines to strengthen English-language enforcement for commercial truck drivers. Under the new enforcement guidelines, commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers who fail to meet the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) English-language proficiency (ELP) requirements will be placed out of service.
Last month, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) directing the FMCSA to strengthen its enforcement of truck driver English-proficiency regulations. The EO directed the FMCSA to rescind June 2o16 language-proficiency guidance and issue a new enforcement policy within 60 days.
Trump’s and the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) stance is that proficiency in English is a “commonsense, non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers.” CMV drivers should be able to read and understand traffic signs, according to the DOT, as well as communicate with traffic safety officers, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weigh station personnel and provide and receive feedback and directions in English.
Under FMCSA regulations, a driver who’s unable to read or speak English or understand highway traffic signs and signals isn’t qualified to operate a CMV.
However, in 2016, the Obama administration directed inspectors not to place CMV drivers out of service due to language-proficiency deficiencies. The current administration’s stance is that the failure to enforce driver qualification standards poses serious safety concerns, increasing the likelihood of a crash.