Company Fined £140,000 after Employee is Crushed to Death
A plastics manufacturer from
Following the accident at Middleton’s Stakehill Industrial Estate, TS(UK) Ltd was prosecuted by the HSE for failure to guarantee the safety of its workers and not training an on-duty worker in First Aid.
Last year, there were 32 fatalities and more than 22,500 severe injuries reported in the manufacturing industry.
On July 15′05, as Abel Lages was cleaning the yard at his worksite, a wooden pallet consisting of fifty five bags of polypropylene dropped on him. The material is used to make plastic products, buckets and washing bowls. It is hazardous to stack the material as it can spill out if there is a tear in the bag and make the stack unbalanced. After the pallet fell on Lages, he found himself trapped inside and eventually succumbed to his injuries.
The company pleaded guilty to violating Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Regulation 3(2) of the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981.
HSE’s Principal Inspector in the Greater Manchester region, John McGrellis said that the company had failed to give priority to the health and safety of its employees. Abel Lages’ death was a case of negligence on the part of the company. McGrellis added that the labels on the bags had clearly described ways of storing the material safely, but the TS(UK) had ignored this warning.
IOSH training by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health is designed to give managers and supervisors all they need to know to help handle health and safety in their teams; click on IOSH Managing Safely Course, to learn about the importance of promoting a positive health and safety culture in the workplace environment, and to help organisations find the best ways to lead and promote health and safety, and therefore meet its legal obligations.
Written on July 16th, 2010 with
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