Search Our Site

February 7, 2025 The actions come after a recent Tampa Bay Times investigation found twice as many workers have died across the state from heat than previously known.   Florida Democratic lawmakers are proposing statewide heat protections for outdoor workers, months after a Tampa Bay Times investigation found far more Florida workers have died of heat illness than authorities know.   “It’s an atrocity, and it’s a tragedy,” said Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, who filed the bill in the Senate on Wednesday. “There’s a need to put these types of regulations in place.” Four other Democrats filed a companion bill in the House.   Florida is one of the nation’s hottest states, with punishing humidity that can make it difficult for the body to cool down. Currently, neither the state nor federal government has heat safety standards to protect workers from high temperatures — despite Florida requiring similar safeguards for high school athletes.   Some of the legislators co-sponsoring the heat protection bill are also calling for a repeal of a law passed last year that blocks local governments from creating their own oversight for workers exposed to heat.   House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, is also in favor of repealing the preemption law.   “This is an issue that has been brought into sharp relief by the number of deaths — both that are known, and now these that have been unreported,” Driskell said. “This lax regulatory environment is empowering employers to try to get away with this, and to not do the right thing and protect their workers.”   Proponents of the ban at the time said businesses and federal regulators could keep laborers safe. But the Times found authorities have missed more than half of all heat-related deaths of workers statewide in the last decade — because Florida companies failed to report them as required by law.   Neither Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the prohibition measure last April, nor its Republican sponsors responded to requests for comment.   No lawmaker has yet filed a bill to repeal the 2024 legislation.   “The federal government is used as an excuse,” Rouson said. “I understand that employers want a standard and don’t want it to change from location to location — making hodgepodge regulation — and this is why we need a statewide standard.”   The proposed heat safety bill would create a program to train businesses and outdoor employees on signs of heat illness. It would require employers to provide water, as well as shade and 10-minute breaks every two hours on hot days.   The push for statewide protections is not new. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have sponsored bills with nearly identical language for years, the Times previously reported, with little traction.   But Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said the Times’ findings “emphasized the urgency” of this year’s legislation.   “I think that this issue often gets tied up in the interests of big businesses, and they brand it as burdensome,” said Eskamani, who is co-sponsoring the House bill filed by Rep. Michael Gottlieb, D-Davie. “I would argue that you save money when you have a healthy work environment, because you avoid things like worker’s comp, you avoid litigation.”   Extreme heat is more deadly than any other natural disaster plaguing the U.S., killing more people annually than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined.   Employers are supposed to notify the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which oversees worker safety, about employee deaths within hours. But the Times identified 19 additional heat-related deaths that were kept from the agency, more than doubling the official number of worker heat fatalities in Florida.   Many were young. At least a handful died during their first week on the job, unaccustomed to Florida’s stifling heat and humidity. Roughly half were immigrants.

January 30, 2025   The head of a Jacksonville painting business has pleaded guilty to being part of a workman’s comp scam that prosecutors said cost the government millions in uncollected taxes and helped hide illegal immigrants on jobsites.   Dorothy Thompson-Avila, 44, was the last to plead guilty out of three people indicted together in May 2023 on charges of wire fraud conspiracy and conspiring to defraud the federal government.   She entered her plea last week, days after a co-defendant, Honduran native Jose Molina-Herrera, was sentenced to 27 months in prison for his part in the fraud, which provided bogus workman’s comp insurance to contractors in places including Duval, Clay and St. Johns counties. State corporation records identify Thompson-Avila as manager of DT Eastern Painters LLC in Jacksonville, but that company is not among the several businesses named in the fraud case.   Florida requires contractors to have workman’s comp coverage for their crews, but prosecutors said the scam used shell companies to buy insurance, then rent that insurance to far more contractors than the policy could cover.   Read more

January 27, 2025   Serious injuries and fatalities involving ladders decreased 21 percentage points over a recent five-year period, according to the results of a recent survey.   The survey was emailed to ladder safety training managers and professions this past spring by the American Ladder Institute’s Education and Outreach Committee. The 35-question survey – the fourth from ALI since 2016 – covered topics such as frequency of ladder citations, types of ladder citations and preferred methods of ladder safety education. A total of 350 responses were received.   Around 18% of the respondents reported experiencing an incident involving a ladder – the same percentage as in the 2020 survey. Of those incidents, roughly 33% resulted in a SIF – down from 54% in 2020.   The respondents were also asked about what type of incidents have occurred in the past two years. Among them: “ladder was set up incorrectly” (33%) and “the wrong ladder was used for the job” (30%).   Other findings: Nearly 9 out of 10 of the respondents didn’t know that OSHA’s regulation on ladders (1926.1053) was No. 3 on the agency’s Top 10 list of most frequently cited standards for fiscal year 2023. Approximately 3 out of 4 hadn’t receive a ladder-related OSHA citation in the previous 12 months. Nearly half of the respondents’ organizations have mandated ladder safety training for at least seven years. “ALI believes that continuous safety training is the best way to empower workers to make the right decisions when using ladders,” the institute says in a press release.   March is National Ladder Safety Month. ALI has a four-week educational outreach program that coincides with the observation.

January 22, 2025   JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Mexican national was sentenced to more than two years in prison and ordered to pay more than $3.5 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States following a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Jacksonville investigation.   Jose Molina-Herrera, 27, of Honduras, was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison. The court also ordered Molina-Herrera to forfeit $867,005, which are proceeds of the wire fraud offense. In addition, Molina-Herrera was ordered to pay a total of $3,558,579.42 in restitution to the IRS. Molina-Herrera entered a guilty plea on Nov. 1, 2024.   Read more

by Louise Esola  Jan 21, 2025           The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined a Vero Beach, Florida-based drainpipe cleaning and maintenance company $16,131 for alleged safety lapses at a worksite where a worker was killed in June 2024.   The agency said Thursday its investigation of Southeast Services of the Treasure Coast Inc. found that during the cleaning of a drainpipe at a Port St. Lucie, Florida, worksite, the pipe’s pressurized plug became over-inflated, causing an explosion so powerful that it ejected one worker 15 feet from the storm drain, resulting in his death.   OSHA cited the company for a “serious” violation for failing to develop and implement procedures and train workers on how to install and remove pneumatic pipe plugs safely. This failure put workers at risk of being struck by dangerous equipment, the agency said.

Tuesday, January 21, 2025 Jacksonville, Florida – Senior U.S. District Judge Brian J. Davis today sentenced Jose Molina-Herrera (27, Honduras) to 27 months in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States for the purpose of impeding the lawful functions of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).    The court also ordered Molina-Herrera to forfeit $867,005, which are proceeds of the wire fraud offense. In addition, Molina-Herrera was ordered to pay $3,558,579.42 in restitution to the IRS. Molina-Herrera entered a guilty plea on November 1, 2024. According to court documents, between 2019 and 2020, Molina-Herrera conspired with others to facilitate the payment of construction workers “off the books” to avoid paying premiums for workers’ compensation insurance and payroll taxes.   Construction contractors and subcontractors entered arrangements with the conspirators, through which All National Remodeling LLC – a shell company formed by Molina-Herrera – facilitated both the distribution of proof of insurance and the payment of workers with cash. In exchange for 6% to 8% of the contractors’ and subcontractors’ payroll, Molina-Herrera and others caused the distribution of certificates of liability insurance in the name of All National Remodeling, which contractors and subcontractors then used as nominal proof that workers were supposedly insured.   In reality, All National Remodeling’s insurance policy was issued based on a fraudulent application that never disclosed that contractors and subcontractors would be employing workers who were ostensibly insured under the shell company’s barebones insurance policy. As a result of contractors and subcontractors using All National Remodeling’s proof of insurance, but never paying any insurance premiums, the insurance company was defrauded more than $2.2 million. . Molina-Herrera and others also facilitated the deposit of checks into the shell company’s bank accounts, as well as the withdrawal of cash to be paid to workers – all without withholding, or paying over, payroll taxes to the IRS. Through these arrangements with the conspirators, the construction contractors and subcontractors could disclaim responsibility for withholding and paying payroll taxes to the IRS or ensuring that the workers were legally authorized to work in the United States. By facilitating payments to workers of over $14 million without payroll taxes being withheld, Molina-Herrera and his co-conspirators caused the U.S. Treasury to lose more than $3.5 million in tax receipts. One of Molina-Herrera’s co-conspirators, Oscar Molina-Avila, was previously sentenced to 52 months’ imprisonment for his role in the scheme. “Using shell companies to pay workers under the table is not only illegal, it gives an unfair competitive advantage that businesses who do things the right way can’t match,” said Ron Loecker, Special Agent in Charge of IRS-Criminal Investigation’s Tampa Field Office.  “We will continue to investigate these schemes to ensure compliance with the law and return competitive balance to the industry.” “Wire fraud and the facilitation of “off the books” payments not only undermine the integrity of our legal and economic systems but also supports unlawful employment activities.” said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Jacksonville Assistant Special Agent in Charge Tim Hemker. “Homeland Security Investigations, alongside our partners at the Internal revenue Service – Criminal Investigations and the Florida Department of Financial Services – Bureau of Insurance Fraud, is committed to holding those who facilitate these complex fraud schemes accountable for their actions.”          This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service—Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Florida Department of Financial Services – Bureau of Insurance Fraud. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael J. Coolican.