Much has changed since workers building the 66-story, 850-foot-tall Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan posed for “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” in 1932, but it remains construction’s most iconic photograph. The OSH Act created OSHA in 1971, so this photo existed decades before any federal agency provided standards or cited employers for violations. Goss and Rank also both noted a long battle to create the steel erection standard, which is a little over 20 years old. With today’s OSHA standards, if an inspector came across a sight like the men in the photo, the fines could vary, depending on whether they are classified as willful or not. If they are, Goss said, the construction firm could face an initial fine of around $155,000 per person — about $1.5 million total. That would be before negotiating a settlement from OSHA. For context, that would be about $200,000 higher than the largest initial fine of 2022.
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