Company admits failings after worker killed by falling concrete slab
Two Canadian employers must pay huge amounts for their workplace health and safety violations that caused harm to workers.
Ontario employer 2258850 Ontario Inc. – operating as Perth County Fabrication – was fined $120,000 for a workplace incident that left one worker dead.
After pleading guilty, the company was also tasked to pay a 25-per-cent surcharge, to be credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The incident happened on Nov. 12, 2019, when Perth was retained to fabricate and install structural steel upon which concrete would be installed at a construction site for construction of a multi-storey building.
On Nov. 5, 2019, an engineer conducted a site visit and found that the precast concrete slabs on the second floor of the building under construction did not bear sufficiently on the structural steel beams.
The engineer’s report stated that no load should be placed on top of the concrete slabs until the matter had been addressed properly. It also recommended that the areas above and below the concrete in question should be taped off so that no person was under or on top of these slabs.
At a meeting between the construction contractors that included Perth, it was determined that the structural beams in the area in question had been installed incorrectly. A plan was put in place to rectify the problem.
The plan required the pre-cast concrete contractor to remove the slabs on the offending steel beams, so that Perth could remove the beams and re-install them correctly. However, by Nov. 12, 2019, the concrete contractor had not made arrangements to remove the slabs, as planned.
Then, a Perth supervisor directed a worker employed to remove most of the bolts on the structural beams and cut the rebar connections under the concrete slabs. The supervisor did not instruct the worker to install bracing to support the concrete slabs once the bolts had been removed.
When the worker cut the rebar under one of the overhead concrete slabs, the slab fell on top of the worker. This resulted in a fatal injury.
An investigation by the Ministry of Labour Training and Skills Development found that Perth failed to ensure that the concrete slabs were adequately braced to prevent any movement that may affect their stability or cause a failure or collapse.
This is in contravention of section 31(1)(b) of the Regulation for Construction Projects and section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. This is an offence contrary to section 66(1) of the Act, according to the Ontario government.
Saskatchewan
Meanwhile, Saskatchewan employer Rock Solid Trucking Ltd. was fined $26,500 plus a surcharge of $10,600 after one of its workers was injured.
The fined stems from an Aug. 18, 2020, incident, when a worker was hurt while operating a loader at a worksite near Cadillac.
The company pleaded guilty to two violations under The Occupational Health and Safety Regulations.
The Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety found that the company contravened a clause of the regulations requiring it to take steps to protect the health of its workers “where a defect or unsafe condition that may create a hazard to a worker is identified in the powered mobile equipment,” resulting in injury.
The employer also failed “to give notice to the division as soon as is reasonably possible of every accident at a place of employment that will require a worker to be admitted to a hospital as an in-patient for a period of 72 hours or more.”
Two other charges were stayed.
Previously, Brandt Industries Canada Ltd., Double-You Builders Ltd. and Rebo Beton Pumping Ltd. were also fined for workplace violations resulting in injuries to workers.