Employer must pay $65,000
Ontario employer South Essex Fabricating Inc. has been fined $65,000 after one of its workers was injured in the workplace.
Following a guilty plea in Provincial Offences Court, Windsor, the employer was also tasked to pay 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.
The incident happened on Nov. 4, 2022, when the company had been contracted to build an addition to a greenhouse that the pipe serviced.
That day, three workers were repairing a section of damaged stormwater drainage pipe at a worksite.
The pipe was located inside a trench.
A worker entered the trench to repair the pipe when one of the trench walls collapsed. The worker sustained critical injuries.
At one end of the trench, the width was just over seven feet, with a depth of just over eight feet. The width and depth of the excavation varied due to the uneven base and walls of the greenhouse.
The distance between the two ends of the pipe was approximately 23 feet. The excavated walls of the trench were cut vertically with little or no sloping, and no shoring was in place.
The collapsed portion of the trench made up a significant portion of the 23 feet cleared to repair the pipe.
An investigation by the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development found that the employer failed to shore the walls of the trench.
“South Essex Fabricating Inc. failed to shore the walls of a trench as required under section 234(1) of Regulation 213/91 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA),” according to the provincial government.
Accordingly, the employer committed the offence of failing, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 234(1) of Regulation 213/91were carried out, contrary to Section 25(1)(c) of the OHSA.
