New York Roofing Contractor Cited $687,536 for Fall Protection Violations

Juan Zuniga Ramos, principal of JZ Exteriors and Repairs LLC, reportedly failed to provide fall protection and train workers on its use. OSHA says the contractor has accused more than $30,000 in unpaid fines.

— Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

HO-HO-KUS, N.J. — A New Jersey roofing contractor with a history of two employees suffering fatal falls has been cited again for exposing workers to fall hazards without protection.

According to a release from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), ALJ Home Improvement Inc. of Nanuet, N.Y., exposed its employees to potentially deadly harm just six months after an unprotected employee’s fatal fall.

In August 2022, an OSHA inspector arrived at a Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., worksite and observed three ALJ Home Improvement employees on a roof 18 feet above ground without required fall protection. The roofing contractor was removing an existing roof and re-installing shingles on a single-family residential structure.

OSHA cited the company with eight violations — four willful and four serious — and proposed a $687,536 penalty for lack of fall and head protection and violations of multiple standards.

ALJ Home Improvement has had seven federal workplace safety inspections in the last four years that identified 33 violations, nine of them willful failures to provide required fall protection. Two of its roofing workers were victims of workplace falls in New York – both in the month of February – the first in 2019 in Kameisha Lake and the second in 2022 in Spring Valley.

“Since 2019, two employees of ALJ Home Improvement have suffered fatal falls and ALJ continues to callously ignore the law and blatantly jeopardize the safety of its workers,” said OSHA Area Director Lisa Levy in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J. “The company repeatedly refuses to comply with OSHA standards and make worker safety a priority, choosing instead to put profit over the lives of its employees. The reality is that a safe workplace is actually a more profitable workplace.”

ALJ Home Improvement is active in Rockland, Orange, Westchester and Dutchess counties in New York and Bergen County in New Jersey.

The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

View the citation here.