Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington

Re: Safety violation resulting in fine

I'm assuming that what happened is that the employer was assessed safety fines as a result of the employee's actions. If this is the case, no, you cannot pass these back to the employees, much as you might like to.

(If the fine was actually assessed against the employee and the employer merely advanced payment on behalf of the employee, as a short term loan, this could be charged back to the employee.)

You may terminate the offending employee. You may also demote the employee (with an approriate pay cut), or you may refrain from promoting the employee. In considering these alternatives, be sure you do not run afoul of any collective bargaining agreement that may be in place.

Also, bear in mind, people make mistakes. If the offender is an otherwise valued employee who made a stupid, not-likely-to-be-repeated, mistake, it might make good business sense to just chalk it up to the cost of having employees and move on.