Osha citation sub contractor

My company is based out of Illinois and we do not tend to use sub contractors until recently, today osha showed up and cited the sub crews for fall protection. I supplied osha with the companies sub agreement and there insurance but what didn't come to mind is I never got a Illinois roofing license from the crew when I called the sub crew stated he didn't have one. I'm not really sure what to do?

;)

Turns out I'm off the hook with osha due to the language in my sub agreement and I have not used that sub since, I will be very careful and make sure any sub I use has a Illinois 104 roofing license.

Sorry Mike.....I was "generalizing", and was referring to mostly private/residential....

TomB Said:

egg; What you describe 30+ years ago in the west is how it works east of the continental divide today! Until you get to the east coast - then its back on again.

I don't know.... because that's not how we operate... but I sure don't see sign of that in Ohio. Lack of licensing doesn't mean it's a free-for-all.

yanni: That sucks for you. Are you in Chicagoland?

Egg: We unknowingly ran for 20 years on a GL policy that didn't cover water intrusion. Naturally, there had been ceilings we've replaced over the years but nothing over a couple thousand in damage. Then in '08 a huge storm hit, we tore off a roof and found some serious structural damage to the house. Their insurance man said to tarp it and he would come out. We tarped it against our will because we wanted to fix the damage that week. It was a hard house to tarp reliably. Then another huge wind storm hit and drowned the house. Then the contractor we hired to fix the lower structure screwed up the re-build and didn't PLUMB A WALL!

Long story short, it cost us $47k. Our insurance carrier said we weren't to blame, but they wouldn't cover it because we didn't have water intrusion. Our insurance man isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but we assumed he was RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING! The subcontractor still owes us...

yanni80; Unless your have specific contract language btwn you and your sub, your on the hook to OSHA, as is the owner and any tier-above you. Licensing has absolutely nothing to do with responsibility concerning OSHA. Just have to cross your fingers and hope your sub promptly addresses the issue(s) directly with OSHA and it all glides through - no eyebrows are raised.

egg; What you describe 30+ years ago in the west is how it works east of the continental divide today! Until you get to the east coast - then it's back on again.

No kidding! Man, that's a serious base that wasn't covered. Kinda like playing ice hockey without a goalie. Sorry to hear about this.

Back in the seventies I subbed a 150 square hot job to an older contractor ("If Otis does it it's there to stay" is what my connections said about him.") Condo units, about eight of them. Job looked ok but when it rained, they leaked. Turns out he subbed them out to somebody else in turn. "And they told me they was journeymen," was his lament.

I asked him if he had insurance. Huge base I failed to cover when I hired him. "I got my bond," he said. "You're kidding me, right???"

We got through it without taking a major hit, but I learned several lessons on that one. I was still in my twenties then.

Back in those days, nobody knew much about anything. Looking back it actually takes my breath away just seeing what everybody got away with and thought nothing of it. Even the white collar dudes were pathetic. My gl insurance agent thought "completed operations" coverage meant if a tile slipped off the roof and hit somebody on the head I was covered and that was all. What a dork. He'd been in the business thirty years already and literally believed that. Needless to say I started boning up on insurance regulations and policies.

This is a tough game we play.