Ontario aerosol manufacturer fined $60K after worker injury

June 24, 2019 – An Ontario manufacturer of aerosol products has been fined by the province’s Ministry of Labour after a worker was struck by a moving lift truck at its Vaughan plant. 

Following a guilty plea, K-G Spray-Pak Inc. was fined $60,000 by Justice of the Peace Adele Romagnoli in Newmarket provincial court. The court also imposed 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 occured on May 24, 2018, when a temporary staffing agency worker was assigned the task of picking finished aerosol cans off the end of the plant’s Line #1 and packing them into boxes placed on wooden pallets. To prepare for this task, the worker used a manual pump truck to retrieve a stack of pallets from another location in the plant.

While walking backwards, pulling the full pump behind while on the way back to the end of Line #1, the worker was struck by a moving lift truck that was being operated in reverse, and that was also heading to the end of Line #1 to pick up pallets of finished product. The worker suffered injuries as a result.

A Ministry of Labour investigation into the incident determined that there were no barriers, warning signs or other safeguards in that area of the plant (the end of Line #1), to protect workers from vehicular traffic.

Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act provides that an employer shall ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by the act and regulations are complied with at the workplace. Section 20 of the Regulation for Industrial Establishments prescribes that “barriers, warning signs or other safeguards for the protection of all workers in an area shall be used where vehicle or pedestrian traffic may endanger the safety of any worker.”

The Ministry of Labour ruled that K-G Spray Pak failed to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 20 of the regulation were complied with.