Platform the two workers were standing on fell, causing injuries
Ontario employer Amico Contractors Inc. was fined $80,000 after two of its workers were injured in the workplace.
Following a guilty plea in the Ontario Court of Justice in Windsor, Ont., the employer was also tasked to pay a 20 per cent surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The incident happened on July 25, 2022, when two workers were setting precast stairs and landings in stair shafts at a construction project in LaSalle.
To complete this task, the workers built a work platform and braced it inside the stair shaft.
Shortly after the two workers climbed onto the platform, the platform fell while both workers were on it, causing injuries.
A Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development inspection found that the workers did not construct or install the platform to support all loads to which it was likely to be subjected.
“By failing to ensure that the platform was constructed and installed to support the load of both workers, Amico Contractors Inc. failed, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 134(1)(a) of Regulation 213/91 were carried out, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” said the Ontario government.
