Thursday, August 30, 2012

Chief Executive Fined Over Worker's Death....


About 8 months ago the APSB had a post of a worker death that occurred at a plant in Australia. Here is the link:

http://aluminiumplantsafety.blogspot.com/2012/01/blood-on-shop-floor-again600000-fine.html

Here is the recent update on that posting:

The Chief Executive of the aluminium company has been convicted and fined $27,000 for the death of a worker at its warehouse nine months after the company was fined $600,000.

The worker was working among aluminium cases stored in the companies warehouse with a co-worker back in late 2007 when several cases toppled onto him, the Industrial Court heard this month.

A similar incident occurred 15 years earlier at a different warehouse owned by the company.

The aluminium company's chief executive and a director, pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching the Occupational Heath and Safety Act in relation to the worker's death and failing to ensure the safety of the co-worker who was nearby when the accident occurred.

The chief executive had no prior conviction on his criminal or industrial record whereas the company did, the court heard.

"The aluminium company has considerably reformed its occupational health and safety system since the incident under the stewardship of the chief executive," the judge said. "The aluminium company implemented many changes following the incident"

The worker's mother previously prepared a victim impact statement to the court where she said that safety in the workplace was paramount.

"As mothers we not expect our children to go to work and end up dead" the statement said."It takes little effort and money to keep our young safe."

Please comment.

2 comments:

Dave Leon said...

Shows there is a big difference between being RESPONSIBLEfor one's safety and being ACCOUNTABLE.

Anonymous said...

It's a sad fact of life how wise we are after the fact. We make decisions and choices at the time about what we are accountable for and then roll the dice. Want to roll the dice??? Go to a casino.