Company Fined After Worker Killed During Warehouse Construction in Brampton
Published March 9, 2018 at 10:43 pm
After a worker died of serious injuries at a warehouse under construction in Brampton, the worker’s employer is facing a major fine.
After a worker died of serious injuries at a warehouse under construction in Brampton, the worker’s employer is facing a major fine.
Dematic Limited – a company that provides supply chain automation, material handling, warehouse management, logistics, software & IT, and consulting services, with workplaces in Mississauga and Waterloo, Ontario – has pleaded guilty after a worker died at a construction site in Brampton on August 9, 2016.
The worker died pinned between the guardrail of a work platform and a steel structure from his injuries. Dematic Limited has been fined $175,000.
According to the Ministry of Labour, Dematic was contracted to design and install a conveyor system at the workhouse under construction in Brampton.
Videos
Workers were tasked with installing decking on structural steel grames. Workers moved the hecking wth a forklift and used a mobile work platform to access the steel frame to install the decking. The mobile work platform would be moved under the steel frame to provide workers access to where the decking had to be installed.
“On the day of the incident, two workers who had been performing this task for some time were part of the work crew installing decking on the east end of one of the structural steel frames,” said the Ministry of Labour in a recent statement. “Both were working from the mobile work platform, with one operating the controls. The mobile work platform was operated from controls that were accessed while on the platform.”
Two workers were required to briefly position themselves below the top rail of the guardrails of the work platform to pass under some beams of the steel frame and access certain sections of it.
One worker was operating the controls of the mobile platform and didn’t have their co-workers in sight, though both were reportedly on the platform while it was being moved.
“While moving the platform, the operator heard a noise and stopped the platform, then saw the co-worker was pinned between the guardrail of the work platform and the steel structure,” said the Ministry of Labour. “Emergency services were called but the worker was pronounced dead at the scene.”
The Ministry of Labour’s investigation revealed that workers had received training to operate the mobile work platform, but it wasn’t being operated in accordance with the operator’s manual during the incident.
“In particular, the manual warned against operating where insufficient clearance existed between the operator and potential obstructions.”
Alongside the fine, the court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising