El Paso manufacturer fined by OSHA after employees maimed

An El Paso manufacturer is facing $119,000 in fines for safety violations after federal safety officials were alerted when employees lost fingers to improperly protected equipment and more.

El Paso Tool and Die is in between Yarbrough Drive and Lomaland DRIVE on the 10800 block of Pellicano Drive.

After a two month investigation wrapped up in May of this year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, determined the manufacturer will have to pay thousands of dollars for numerous safety violations and make fixes to all of them.

The 61 page citation document from OSHA list out 33 different types of violations that Stampcoat, Inc., doing business as El Paso Tool and Die has committed. This all started when OSHA was notified that an employee had his index and middle finger crushed, and part of his ring finger amputated by a machine without proper protection in place.

While OSHA was conducting the investigation between March and May, another employee had the tip of his thumb sheared off in another incident.

“This would be one of the more severe circumstances, so based on that particular incident, we decided to open an investigation,” said OSHA El Paso Area Director Diego Alvarado, Jr.

Alvarado said this was a particularly large investigation for our area, and found safety violations with many of the plant’s machines, including a lack of employee protections, lax controls and protections for when the machines were being worked on, along with improper hearing protection requirements and forklift issues among others.

ABC-7 reached out to the company by phone, email and in person, but weren’t able to speak with owner Salvador Robles directly.

But employees ABC-7 spoke with said they had seen the OSHA report and were worried about the plant closing.

Alvarado said the purpose is not to shut a company down.

He added that the owner can either pay the fine, contest it in court, “Or they can set up an informal conference, come on into the area office here at the local level, discuss the citations here with me,” Alvarado said, “and hopefully come to some sort of resolution or settlement offer here at the local level.”

El Paso Press and Die’s owner Salvador Robles did send ABC-7 a statement in response to the requests for comment –

“We received the OSHA citations yesterday and are in the process of reviewing them.

“We have been in business for many years and are committed to the safety and health of our employees. We cooperated fully with OSHA during their investigation and will continue to work with them in the future to ensure the safety of our employees.”

The company has 15 days to decide how to respond to the citation.