OSHA Fines Ashley Furniture $1.76M for Worker Injuries in Wisconsin

OSHA has identified more than 1,000 worker injuries at the company facilities in Arcadia, including severed fingers.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration began probing conditions at Ashley Furniture work sites in Arcadia this past summer, after a worker lost three fingers while operating a woodworking machine. Investigators found that it did not have safety mechanisms in place, and that dozens of other employees were injured using similar equipment. OSHA looked back three years.

Ashley Furniture Industries Inc. is the largest furniture retailer in the U.S. with annual revenue of $3.8 billion and 20,000 employees nationwide. More than 4,000 have worked at its facilities in Arcadia, with OSHA identifying 1,000 injuries among those employees.

The agency identified violations as willful, repeated and serious, and is fining Ashley $1.76 million.

Cited offenses included: not training workers on safety procedures and hazards present when serving machinery, lacking drenching facilities for workers exposed to corrosive materials and failing to equip some machines with readily-accessible emergency stop buttons. 

According to U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, "Ashley Furniture intentionally and willfully disregarded OSHA standards and its own corporate safety manuals to encourage workers to increase productivity and meet deadlines."

The company has 15 business days to respond.

Ashley Furniture reacted to the OSHA findings and action via a statement. It reads, in part:

"Ashley Furniture Industries, Inc. strongly disputes the allegations issued today by the U.S. Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regarding the company’s safety operations in its Arcadia, Wisconsin facility.

"The Company strongly disagrees with each and every one of the agency’s assertions and believes the proposed penalties are grossly inappropriate and over-zealous.

"To clarify, OSHA’s announcement is not a finding of fact, but rather only an allegation, Ashley strongly disagrees with each and every opinion of the agency, and looks forward to the opportunity to present our evidence in the proper setting.

“At Ashley, each employee’s safety and well-being is an absolute priority,” said Steve Ziegeweid, Ashley Director of Health and Safety.

“In the past five years, Ashley has lowered our incident rate by 14 percent and our ‘days away, restricted or transferred’ rate by 28 percent – demonstrating our commitment to real and tangible improvements in safety across our company,” Ziegeweid said.