11:20 pm, Thursday 22 September, 2011

The NSW Industrial Court has fined a brakes company and its director a total of $127,400 after the death of an employee in an industrial blender.

The machine operator was killed when he was cleaning out the high-powered blender in March 2008.

The power to the machine had not been isolated, and the worker received extensive crush injuries and lacerations when it activated while he was still inside.

The court fined the company $117,000 and its managing director $10,400 after each pleaded guilty to breaching the Occupational Health & Safety Act 2000.

WorkCover NSW spokesman Peter Dunphy said the risks to the employee’s safety were entirely foreseeable and the incident should never have happened.

“This case is particularly significant given that the company’s insurer had 12 months previously identified major shortcomings in the company’s occupational health and safety systems,” he said.

“The WorkCover investigation found that many of the identified problems had not been addressed.

“The steps that should have been taken were not only simple, but they were well-known safety practices in the industry.

“This is a very tragic reminder of the need to maintain proper safety protocols.

“If this company had done this, chances are a man would be alive today.”

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07:57 am, Saturday 4 June, 2011

A materials recovery facility has been fined after a man injured his arm on an unguarded machine.

The incident occurred in February 2008 when the man was working at the factory in Kalgoorlie which sorts recyclable material.

The employer was fined $10,000 on Wednesday after pleading guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment.

The owner and operator of the facility was also fined $10,000 after pleading guilty to failing to ensure that every dangerous part of a fixed machine was guarded.

The injured man was working alone when he started a multi-purpose baler and noticed aluminium cans caught between the conveyor belt and the roller.

With the conveyor still operating, he lifted the latch on the conveyor gate and reached in to remove an aluminium can.

There was no lock or interlock device fitted to the bolt latch.

The conveyor continued to operate and the man’s glove was caught, drawing his hand in between the conveyor and the roller until his shoulder was against the side of the baler.

There was no emergency stop button fitted, but two workers outside the building heard the man’s calls for help and shut down the baler.

The injured man sustained a torn bicep and fractured right arm.

Acting WorkSafe Commissioner Lex McCulloch said guarding moving parts of machinery was one of the easiest and most obvious ways to minimise the risk of injury.

“In this case, both the employer and the company in control of the workplace were prosecuted because both had a responsibility to ensure the workplace was safe, firstly by guarding the dangerous moving parts of the machinery and secondly by ensuring that workers observed safe work practices,” he said.

“Many workers have been seriously injured or killed when equipment or machinery they were working on has been left energised or accidentally activated, so it is absolutely crucial that safe systems of work are in place.”

Mr McCulloch said an interlock device and an emergency stop button were fitted at the facility following the incident.

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08:35 pm, Sunday 8 May, 2011

The Industrial Court in South Australia has fined an Adelaide barrel manufacturer over an incident in 2008 that left a worker with permanent disfigurement and loss of function in his hand.

The 21 year old assistant had been assigned to clean out sawdust from a ‘Stave Jointer’ machine, which shapes timbers under precise computer control, into the individual staves that make up the sides of a barrel.

His hand came into contact with the spinning blades of a heavy cutter wheel, resulting in broken bones, severed tendons and multiple lacerations to his right hand.

He was required to undego extensive treatment including four operations, skin grafts and physiotherapy.

The company pleaded guilty to a breach of section 19(1) of the Occupational Health Safety and Welfare Act 1986 in failing to ensure the health and safety of an employee at work.

SafeWork SA submitted that the employer failed its workplace safety duties in that: (a) it failed to install an interlock guard to prevent access to the blades, (b) its safe work procedure for the task of cleaning sawdust from the machine was inadequate, (c) there was no procedure in place to activate a training in the safe use of the machine.

Industrial Magistrate Stephen Lieschke said far greater care and attention should have been paid to separating the young employee from the dangerous cutter blades while performing cleaning duties.

He fined the company $32,000 and ordered the payment of $5,400 as compensation to the victim’s mother for loss of income while caring for her son.

SafeWork SA says the case highlights the need for meticulous attention to the safe operation of industrial machinery.

“Every step needs to be taken to ensure that hazards are first identified and managed, and then all staff especially the young and inexperienced are trained to the fullest extent to ensure that luck plays no factor in safe work,” said acting executive director, Juanita Lovatt.

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05:10 pm, Tuesday 5 October, 2010

A Hobart brick plant where a worker’s leg was amputated on September 23 has been allowed to resume operations by Workplace Standards.

The 25-year-old man’s lower body was trapped for more than an hour by a clay crusher in the New Town plant. A doctor had to perform an on-the-spot amputation to free the man from the equipment.

The accident may have been caused by the plant’s lock out procedures. According to Workplace Standards, the crusher had been stopped so debris can be removed. However, another worker who did not know the man was still inside restarted the machine.

The plant operator said in a statement that it had worked with the safety watchdog to introduce improvements in their safety systems.

Workplace Standards’ investigation into the industrial accident is ongoing.

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07:22 am, Monday 27 September, 2010

A contract worker pinned by a machine in a Tasmanian brick plant had one of his legs amputated on the spot in order to free him.

The 25-year-old man’s lower body was crushed by an equipment, believed to be a clay crusher, at a work site in Gilbin St. for over an hour on Thursday.

He was freed after a doctor was called on site to perform the amputation.

Two Workplace Standards officers had visited the site to investigate the circumstances surrounding the industrial accident.

According to Workplace Standards Tasmania general manager Roy Ormerod, a prosecution will likely result following an accident such as this.

“We first investigate the cause of the accident, then work out where the systems failed which result in the injury, then make sure proper safety systems are put in place so it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Mr Ormerod said a lockout and tagging system would have ensured the equipment was not activated until the area was cleared. He said they had not yet determined whether the company had this procedure in place.

About eight to twelve industrial-related deaths are reported in the state every year, which Mr Ormerod said are “way too many”.

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03:24 pm, Thursday 22 April, 2010

A sand quarry company has been fined on Monday after director suffered hand injuries due to an unguarded plant.

The company pleaded guilty before the Magistrates Court to failing to provide & maintain so far as was practicable for employees a safe working environment – systems of work.

The sand supplies business at Ronald’s Road, Willung is run by a small family company. One casual employee and the company’s two directors (husband and wife) serve as workers at the sand quarry.

On 13 July 2009 the male director was standing on a platform operating a sand sieve when his left hand became trapped at the in-running nip points between the head drum and the conveyor belt.

He sustained de-gloving and bruising to his left hand, and had to undergo surgery.

Magistrate Edwin Batt was told sand quarry work involves excavating raw sand from the mine and loading it into the sand hopper by front end loader.

The sand passes through the hopper and travels up on the incline conveyor to a sand sieve. A worker can access the sieve by a ladder to the platform.

Magistrate Batt heard there is no guarding in place on the nip points and other dangerous parts of the plant while it is turned on. Coming in contact with the plant’s parts can result to nipped or de-gloved fingers and breaking or crushing of limbs.

The company was fined $6,000 and ordered to pay $2,787.52 in costs.

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09:31 pm, Thursday 1 April, 2010

WorkSafe is anticipating to prosecute more cases this year involving meat work companies because of unsafe work practices.

An abattoir and its cleaning company were unguarded machinery.

A parallel case in February resulted in fines totaling $60,000 for a meat company and its cleaning contractor over a similar incident in 2007.

According to WorkSafe Acting Executive Director for Health and Safety Stan Krpan, the safety watchdog will not condone any breach in meat processing industry.

“This is just unacceptable in this day and age and the law is very serious, these are criminal offences and we’ve been prosecuting them,” he said.

“We’re in fact doing more prosecutions this year than we have over the last few. We intend to increase that again next year and the costs are significant. The costs to small businesses in particular are crushing.”

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05:27 pm, Tuesday 30 March, 2010

Two separate abattoirs and their respective contract cleaning companies have been prosecuted for injuries to cleaners in almost similar circumstances.

WorkSafe has prosecuted all four companies under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 for failings including inadequate unguarded machinery.

An abattoir from Ararat was convicted and fined $20,000 yesterday, while its service provider was convicted and fined $55,000, after a machine accident in 2008. A contract cleaner’s arm was caught in a conveyor as he stretched to reach for a piece of meat.

In a similar incident prosecuted in February, a Warrnambool-based meat abattoir and its contractor were convicted after a worker’s arm was dragged into an unguarded conveyor in 2007. The meat company was fined $35,000 and the cleaning company $25,000.

Both incidents identified similar failings by the parties.

The two cleaning contractor companies did not provide training and instruction to staff on how to clean dangerous machinery; and failed to carry out lock out and tag out’ machines before cleaning.

The two abattoirs failed to install proper machine guards: Ararat-based company’s conveyor had removable guards, which allowed workers to access the machine’s danger area. As for the Warrnambool-based company, small holes on each side of the unguarded conveyor were found, and the cleaners’ hands could access hazardous moving parts.

Commenting on the cases, WorkSafe’s Acting Executive Director for Health and Safety Stan Krpan said:

“The fact that we’re continuing to see these sorts of cases is not acceptable. Guards that can be removed, or that don’t prevent access to dangerous machinery, are useless. And not training staff to know that you need to make sure a machine is tagged as being ‘off’ before cleaning it, is inexcusable.

“These prosecutions are a message to industry – that basic safety failings like we’ve seen in these two cases are indefensible – WorkSafe recognises this, and so do the courts.”

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11:57 am, Friday 26 March, 2010

A Shepparton company has been fined after one of its employers suffered severe hand injuries while working with a machinery in 2007.

The Magistrate Court fined the plastics company $55,000 and ordered it to pay about $6,000 in costs.

The 2007 incident cost the 24-year-old worker four of his fingers and part of his thumb on his left hand when they were amputated by a machine at the Shepparton worksite.

The man’s hand got caught when the machine was activated unintentionally.

It was later found the machine’s guard was overridden while maintenance was being undertaken.

The court was told the man’s injury is devastating, and he cannot use his left hand properly.

The prosecutor for WorkSafe said there was a culture of overriding machines for maintenance at the plant.

However, the company’s lawyer said the directors were not aware of the safety practice.

The company was previously fined $30,000 when an employee was severely injured on a similar machine in 2002.

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08:53 am, Wednesday 3 March, 2010

WorkSafe is looking into the death of a worker in a factory in Melbourne on Friday.

The 26-year-old Wantirna resident was working on a machine at CRP Industries in Bayswater at the time of his death.

According to WorkSafe spokesman Michael Birt, they are determining whether the man died of electric shock.

He was believed to be lifting a guard on an electric press making rubber gaskets when he was electrocuted.

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