Ormeau company fined $25,000 over workplace safety breach
Date issued: 2009-10-06
An Ormeau plant importation and installation company has been fined $25,000 after a worker was injured at a Geebung sign manufacturing business in July 2007.
Matcam Oz Pty Ltd pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Industrial Magistrates Court on 6 May 2009 to breaching section 24 of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995, having failed to ensure workplace safety.
The Court heard the incident occurred during the installation of a 2900kg router table on the mezzanine level of the Geebung premises using a crane with a spreader bar and chains attached to midpoints along both sides of the table. The router control box was strapped to the top of the table.
When lifted, the router table was not level due to uneven weight distribution. Climbing onto the router table to try to level it, the worker slipped. His right leg became trapped between the spreader bar and the control box and he sustained compound fractures of the right leg requiring surgery.
The Workplace Health and Safety Queensland investigation revealed the company:
- did not conduct a specific risk assessment prior to sending the employee to carry out the installation work, relying instead on the crane company Global Cranes Pty Ltd
- did not conduct a safety brief prior to the lift, and
- did not instruct workers not to climb on the load.
Since the incident, the company has implemented procedures in relation to exclusion zones when doing installations, conducted a safety risk assessment, and revised its installation plans and methods to minimise the risk.
Industrial Magistrate Mr Jim Barbeler took into account the company's stricken financial circumstances, that it had no previous prosecutions for workplace health and safety breaches, it had cooperated with the investigation and had entered an early guilty plea. He ordered the company to pay investigation costs of $1006.12. No conviction was recorded.
*Note: Global Cranes Pty Ltd pleaded guilty and was fined $30,000 in the Brisbane Industrial Magistrates Court on 20 March 2009 in relation to this incident.
Both prosecutions were brought by Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, a part of the Department of Justice and Attorney-General.
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