Cal/OSHA has cited multiple employers for not protecting workers from COVID-19 during inspections in various industries throughout the state.

Violations were identified in industries including health care, restaurant, retail, fitness centers, correctional institutions and more. Cal/OSHA opened the inspections after learning of COVID-19 fatalities and illnesses, after receiving complaints and during targeted inspections. The full list of employers cited for COVID-19 violations is posted on Cal/OSHA’s website.

Inspections at the San Quentin and Avenal state prisons occurred after reports of hospitalizations of staff following outbreaks at the institutions. Cal/OSHA determined that San Quentin staff were not provided adequate training or equipment for working with COVID-19 infected individuals, and employees who had been exposed to COVID-19 positive inmates were not provided proper medical services, including testing, contact tracing and referrals to physicians or other licensed health care professionals. Cal/OSHA issued citations for four willful-serious, five serious, one regulatory and four general category violations, including the employer’s failure to institute an effective aerosol transmissible diseases (ATD) control exposure plan.

Avenal State Prison was cited for three serious violations after Cal/OSHA found it failed to maintain an effective written ATD program including site-specific instruction, had an inadequate written respiratory protection plan, and failed to implement and/or enforce work practice controls to minimize exposure to COVID-19 amongst employees.

Ventura-based fitness center BSF Fitness was cited for one willful-serious, two serious and six general category violations following a complaint-initiated inspection opened last July, after a report that the employer was not enforcing face covering use and physical distancing in its gym.

Accident inspections were opened following reports of serious COVID-19 related illnesses at the Kaiser Permanente medical centers in San Leandro, Antioch and Walnut Creek, and Burlingame-based Mills-Peninsula Medical Center; and opened a complaint-initiated inspection at Fairfield-based NorthBay Medical Center. The facilities were cited for serious and regulatory violations after Cal/OSHA found multiple deficiencies in their ATD and respiratory protection programs.

Also cited were four skilled nursing centers: Sunray Healthcare Center and Sherman Village Healthcare Center (both located in the Los Angeles area), Fremont Healthcare Center in Fremont, and San Miguel Villa in Concord. Fremont Healthcare Center and San Miguel Villa were also cited for a regulatory violation because they failed to immediately report serious illnesses suffered by employees.

Cardenas Market in Oakland was cited for multiple violations including three serious-category violations following media coverage of an outbreak where seventeen workers tested positive for COVID-19 last May.

Grimmway Enterprises, Inc. was cited for multiple violations including two serious-category violations, following a fatality-initiated inspection.

Cal/OSHA also cited Carter’s Children’s Wear in Gilroy for failing to immediately report a COVID-19 related serious illness and failing to establish, implement and maintain an effective Injury Illness Prevention Program.