‘Failings will impact worker for the rest of his life’

The meat processing company Alliance Group Limited has been fined $332,000 for failing to ensure the safety of a Timaru employee whose hand was amputated in a piece of machinery in March 2017.

WorkSafe New Zealand prosecutor Emma Jeffs said the consequence was “extremely severe and will have a life-long impact on the worker”.

The employee had been at the plant for only five days and was left unsupervised on a task.

The incident involved the worker opening a section of the machinery used for dehydrating blood into a powder and placed his right hand inside. The hand was struck by a rotating screw and was amputated.

WorkSafe’s investigation found that Alliance Group had failed to ensure the health and safety of its workers and that it was reasonably practicable for them to have undertaken an adequate risk assessment of the machine and to have ensured it was adequately guarded.

Simon Humphries, WorkSafe’s deputy general manager for Investigations and Specialist Services, said the level of injury and trauma this worker endured as a result of “Alliance’s failings will impact him for the rest of his life”.

“This is a stark reminder to others operating machinery in every industry to ensure machinery is adequately guarded,” said Humphries.

“New Zealand has rigorous and accessible standards for machine guarding – adhering to them and mitigating the risks your machinery poses is imperative to keeping workers safe from harm”.

After the incident, Alliance Group had in-house engineers guard the machine and also produced a standard operating procedure for the task of blood drying.

The defence lawyer for Alliance Group Tim Clarke said the company record was still superior to others in the industry - especially considering it had been in operation for 70 years with eight plants, 10s of 1000s of machines, and more than 4700 employees.

According to Judge Macdonald, the defendant had acted "perfectly responsibly" in the aftermath to the incident and made sure no other worker suffered the same injury by replacing the outlet so that it was enclosed at all times.