MANITOBA — Three employers and a property owner have been prosecuted for violations under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, with penalties totalling more than $71,000 ordered by the courts.
The Workplace Safety and Health branch of Manitoba Growth, Enterprise and Trade issued a media bulletin this month outlining the offences and reminding employers to ensure workplaces and workers are safe.
On July 30, 2012, a workplace health and safety officer investigated a serious incident at a property owned by Aeshu Corporation with work being done by Sterling O&G International Corporation. While onsite, the officer noted an excavation where measures were not being taken to protect workers from a potential collapse. As a result a stop-work order was issued.
The officer the returned to the site that October and saw the company had once again started tasks subject to the stop-work order, which is a contravention, stated the media bulletin.
Sterling O&G International Corporation was convicted of failing to comply with an order made pursuant to the Workplace Safety and Health Act and was ordered to pay $3,500 in fines and surcharges in December 2017, the release indicates, adding Aeshu Corporation was found guilty of the same offence and ordered to pay $3,500 in fines and surcharges.
In another incident a worker at ProCast Technologies Inc. noted the temperature of a quench tank on a heat-treating system had not reached the required temperature due to an electrical issue on Feb. 25, 2016. An electrical contractor was contacted but before they arrived, the worker and a supervisor checked the voltage in an electrical panel using a voltage meter.
The worker touched live electrical wires in the panel with the voltage meter test leads, resulting in burns to the worker’s hands, arms, neck and face, the bulletin states. In December 2017, the employer pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that only electrical workers perform electrical work in the workplace and was ordered to pay $14,000 in fines and surcharges.
Lastly, on May 21, 2014, a worker with 5187436 Manitoba Ltd. (formerly Clint Moffat & Sons Ltd.) was adjusting a portable, extendable radial stacking conveyor that was malfunctioning due to soft soil conditions when he was run over by a portable stacker and died. The employer pleaded guilty to the charge of failing to ensure the safety, health and welfare of its worker and was ordered to pay $50,050 in fines and surcharges in December 2017.
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