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OSHA silica citations: look up an employer

Find out if a state safety agency or OSHA has cited any company you worked for over silica dust.

A bridge saw cutting a quartz slab in a countertop shop, the kind of workplace cited for silica dust
employers in the records
44
states
15
agencies: OSHA, Cal/OSHA and Washington L&I
3
first record
August 2019
Browse all 44 employers, by state

Alabama (1)

California (7)

All OSHA silica citations in California

Florida (3)

All OSHA silica citations in Florida

Georgia (6)

All OSHA silica citations in Georgia

Illinois (2)

New Hampshire (1)

New Jersey (2)

  • Road Contractor Corp., Long Branch: residential wood framing and sheathing contractor, announced June 2024
  • U.S. Tank Painting Inc., Bayville: industrial painting and sandblasting contractor (water tower painting), announced July 2024

New York (1)

Ohio (2)

Pennsylvania (1)

Rhode Island (1)

Texas (4)

  • Artco-Bell Corp., Temple: school furniture manufacturer and designer, announced October 2024
  • Cavco Industries Inc., Austin: modular and manufactured home manufacturer, announced April 2024
  • Emanuel Enterprises LLC, Houston: demolition contractor (lead, asbestos and mold abatement and remediation, and demolition), announced December 2023
  • RM Masonry and Stucco Inc., Denton: masonry and stucco construction company, announced September 2021

All OSHA silica citations in Texas

Washington (11)

All OSHA silica citations in Washington

West Virginia (1)

Wisconsin (1)

Employers cited, by state

StateEmployersCited byLargest penalty
Washington11Washington L&I$329,880
California7Cal/OSHA$18,785
Georgia6OSHA$182,344
Texas4OSHA$272,479
Florida3OSHA$132,037
Illinois2OSHA$392,002
New Jersey2OSHA$819,417
Ohio2OSHA$270,048
Alabama1OSHA$124,212
New Hampshire1OSHA$87,516
New York1OSHANot announced
Pennsylvania1OSHA$496,528
Rhode Island1OSHA$43,506
West Virginia1OSHA$131,972
Wisconsin1OSHA$200,895

Stone and countertop shops account for most of the companies cited, 25 of the 44. The rest work in concrete, masonry, metal casting, building, brickmaking, and a handful of other manufacturing trades.

Washington has the most employers here with 11, then California with 7 and Georgia with 6. Texas follows with 4 and Florida with 3, while Illinois, Ohio, and New Jersey each have 2. Seven more states (Alabama, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) each have a single employer in the records.

The records list seven California employers, all stone shops in Sun Valley, with citations dated August 27, 2024; Cal/OSHA proposed a penalty of $18,785 for each.

An air sampling pump and filter cassette, the gear inspectors use before OSHA silica citations are issued

How a citation affects your claim

By "penalty" we mean a fine for the agency, not money for workers. Showing the dust was at your job is one way a citation helps, but it won't decide a claim, and you can file without one.

To move your claim forward, you use your state's workers' comp program or a lawsuit against the product manufacturers.

Silica citations, explained

If you worked around silica dust, you can use this page of OSHA silica citations to see whether a safety agency cited your employer for breaking the dust rules. When a safety agency finds that an employer violated a rule, it sends a written notice, which often comes with a fine. The records on this page include 44 employers across 15 states, drawn from 48 citations issued since August 2019, and each one links to its official record.

How to check if your employer was cited

Enter the company name as your pay stub showed it. The record will give you the city, the kind of work involved, the date, and the penalty. The fines vary a lot. At the low end, Priceless Granite Surfaces LLC in Washington was assessed $1,500. At the high end, $819,417 was proposed for Road Contractor Corp. in New Jersey.

Some employers show up more than once, so go through each date. One example: A+ Marble & Granite LLC in Burlington, Washington got a $20,700 penalty in 2022, then a $329,880 penalty in 2024.

If you don't find your employer's name, that doesn't prove the company was never cited. The agencies put only some citations in their news releases, so the lookup here can't include every fined company.

What rules do OSHA silica violations usually involve?

In construction citation data from September 2017 through April 2018, the most commonly cited problem was missing or inadequate testing of the air for silica dust. Missing or inadequate air monitoring accounted for 28 percent of citations, and about 21 percent were for having no written plan to control dust, or a plan that fell short.

Between September 2017 and April 2018, training problems made up 16 percent of silica citations, and 6 percent involved respirators or other breathing protection. OSHA's exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica is 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air, averaged over eight hours. Silica citations are generally classified as serious.

The dust in question is respirable crystalline silica. It's released by sawing, drilling, grinding, crushing, and otherwise cutting stone, rock, concrete, brick, block, and mortar. Roughly 2.3 million U.S. workers are exposed to it on the job.

Why the list has so many countertop shops

Making artificial stone countertops exposes workers to silica dust. OSHA treats this as an emerging hazard and has connected it to clusters of an aggressive, severe form of silicosis striking young workers.

Silicosis is a lung disease caused by breathing in silica dust. There's no cure, and it can lead to disability and death. Foundries and fracking operations also expose workers, through industrial sand.

Who handles workplace inspections?

Workplace safety rules come from OSHA, a federal agency, though a number of states run inspection programs of their own. In California the program goes by Cal/OSHA, and in Washington the agency responsible is the Department of Labor and Industries, or L&I.

Because of that split, this page pulls from three places: news releases from the federal agency, news releases from Cal/OSHA, and citation records from Washington L&I. The federal releases skip California and Washington, so a company in either state appears only in that state's records.

Workers' compensation is a separate matter from safety citations. Every state has its own system, and your state's agency appears on a Labor Department roster of state contacts.