Worker was fatally struck by a dump truck at a landfill site
Ontario employer Waste Management of Canada Corporation (WMCC) was fined $280,000 after one worker died in the workplace.
After a guilty plea, the employer was also tasked to pay a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act, to be credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The incident happened on Dec. 9, 2021, when the company hired Terra Nova Environmental Services Inc. to provide environmental remediation and project management. The contract stipulated that Terra Nova was solely responsible for the work of Terra Nova employees and its agents, subcontractors or suppliers. Terra Nova was also to ensure the work was performed in compliance with all applicable laws and WMCC’s operating and safety procedures for the landfill tipping face, or the area where soil is dumped.
The safety procedures included a ban on walking behind vehicles or heavy equipment, requiring anyone directing traffic to do so away from the tipping floor and path of vehicles or heavy equipment. It also required operators to discuss hand signals with all helpers before starting a two-person backing up process.
On the day of the incident, a worker provided by a company sub-contracted by Terra Nova was at the dump site performing work as a signaller for dump trucks unloading soil.
A truck arrived to dump its load that afternoon.
However, the signaller did not give verbal direction to the driver, instead they left their vehicle, walked up the hill towards the dump location and attempted to guide the driver to the proper location.
As a result, the driver reversed up the hill and fatally struck the signaller.
Late in November, a construction worker lost his life in Chestermere, Alberta after a significant fall at a residential construction site.
Following an investigation, the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development found that while WMCC had comprehensive safety procedures for the tipping face and there was a contractual agreement that Terra Nova would oversee the project and ensure those procedures were followed, WMCC was also liable, as one of the employers, because it subcontracted the work.
“WMCC failed to ensure that the signaller communicated with the truck driver by means of a telecommunication system or, where visual signals are clearly visible to the driver, by means of prearranged visual signals, contrary to subsection 106(3) of Regulation 213/91, violating s. 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” according to the Ontario government.
Charges were also brought against other companies involved and the driver of the dump truck and those cases are ongoing, according to the government.
Previously, Stouffville Glass, Inc., a glass supplier and installation company based in Stouffville, Ontario, was fined $150,000 following a workplace fatality that occurred on June 28, 2021.
