Unsafe movement spurs penalties

NIAGARA FALLS — An Ontario company and one of its employees were issued penalties in July for numerous breaches of the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Res 2000 Structures Inc. was fined $85,000 and employee Tony Cristao handed a $5,000 penalty following the injury of a worker in the spring of 2008, notes a statement from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour (MOL) in Toronto.

On March 26, 2008, company employees were placing panels on a hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario. An incorrectly placed steel panel had to be moved using a crane while one worker stood on a scaffold to guide it, the MOL reports.

The crane operator lifted the panel higher than expected, and it passed over the heads of workers before it struck the worker on the scaffold. The worker fell approximately four metres to an open stairwell, sustaining serious injuries.

Res 2000 Structures was convicted of failing to ensure the following: a scaffold was equipped with a guardrail; the crane was operated in such a way that its load did not pass over the heads of workers; and one or more guide ropes or tag lines were used to prevent the rotation or uncontrolled motion of a load being hoisted by a crane. The company also failed to take every precaution reasonable for the protection of a worker.

Cristao, for his part, was convicted of failing to operate a crane in a way that its load did not pass over workers, failing to use guide ropes or tag lines to prevent the uncontrolled motion of a load being hoisted by a crane, and operating equipment in a manner that may endanger another worker.