Worker injured in forklift incident at GE Appliances, 3 weeks after OSHA citation
Feb. 7—First responders were dispatched to GE Appliances on Point Mallard Drive Southeast on Thursday morning because of an industrial accident, according to the Decatur Police Department, just three weeks after being fined for a workplace fatality at the plant.
Police spokeswoman Irene Cardenas-Martinez said Decatur Fire and Rescue, Morgan County EMS and Decatur police arrived at the refrigeration plant at 9:38 a.m. and found an employee who was suffering from non-life-threatening injuries resulting from "an incident involving a forklift."
The employee was transported to Huntsville Hospital for treatment, according to Cardenas-Martinez.
This incident comes in the wake of a report released Jan. 17 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which states that GE Appliances, with factories in Decatur and Louisville, Kentucky, has a history of safety failures.
In July 2024, 58-year-old Rodney Terry of Town Creek, who worked as the front-line supervisor at GE Appliances, was killed after "an entrapment with a piece of machinery," according to Deputy Fire Chief Nathan Springer.
After an inspection, OSHA recommended the maximum fine of $193,585 on Haier US Appliance Solutions, the parent company of GE Appliances of Decatur since it was acquired in 2016.
"Haier US Appliance Solutions could have avoided this tragedy but put production schedules and profit ahead of employee safety," OSHA Area Office Director Joel Batiz in Birmingham said of the fatality. "This company's troubling history of safety failures in its manufacturing process has posed a significant risk to the more than 1,500 workers at its Decatur location who rely on a safe and healthy workplace."
OSHA said GE Appliances' Decatur and Louisville, Kentucky, plants have a history of 40 safety inspections since 2016.
"These inspections included many machine safety violations, including two repeated and two serious violations of lockout/tagout requirements cited after a 55-year-old worker's fatality in Louisville in February 2019," according to the report.
On Jan. 30, GE Appliances spokesperson Julie Wood said the plant places a high value on worker safety.
"Our organization, and the Decatur facility in particular, has a strong safety record," she said. "Our Decatur facility was a part of OSHA's highly regarded Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) from 1996 to 2024. The plant underwent seven extensive on-site reviews by OSHA VPP teams during that time, during which OSHA performed an in-depth review of the facility's documentation, conducted employee interviews, and performed a wall-to-wall inspection of the plant."
— wesley.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442.
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