A New York roofing company has stopped fighting over $600,000 in fines after inspectors found workers were vulnerable to falls at a Bergen County construction site, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said recently.
The agency convinced the company, ALJ Home Improvement of Nanuet, New York, to end its litigation challenging the fines, OSHA said in a statement. The decision came a week prior to a planned trial being heard before the department’s Office of the Solicitor in New York.
OSHA had issued $687,536 in penalties and citations after finding in 2022 the company failed to provide employees with steep-slope roofing protection at a home construction site on Warren Avenue in Ho-Ho-Kus.
Federal inspectors have inspected the company 10 other times, including after two worker fatalities, in 2019 and 2022 - both in New York.
The company operates in Rockland, Orange, Westchester, and Dutchess Counties in New York and Bergen County in New Jersey, officials said. A message left for the company was not immediately returned Sunday.
“Our strong litigation strategy ended ALJ Home Improvement’s attempt to contest OSHA’s findings,” Jeffrey S. Rogoff, regional OSHA director in New York, said in a statement.
OSHA inspectors found workers using ladders unsafely, without adequate fall protection or head protection, officials said. Ladders were overloaded or misused, leaving workers at risk of falling about 18 feet to the ground, according to the citations issued in February 2023.
OSHA officials said their Bergen County investigation came less than six months after a worker died after a fall death under similar circumstances at a construction site in New Square, New York.
That fall led to federal charges against the company’s founder and principal manager, Jose Lema - also known as Jose Lema Mizhirumbay - in 2023. He pleaded guilty in February to willfully violating OSHA regulations in U.S. District Court in New York City. He faces six months in federal prison when he’s sentenced in May.
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Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com.
