London rebar company, supervisor fined $97K after 2 workers injured on the job, 1 critically

A London rebar and wire mesh manufacturer, and a supervisor at the company, have been fined a total of $97,000 in connection with two separate workplace incidents that left two workers injured, one critically, the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development said Tuesday.

The incidents in question both took place at the 120 McMillan St. facility of AGF Rebar Inc., part of Quebec-based AGF Group Inc., on Dec. 7, 2018, and on Jan. 11, 2019, said the ministry, adding a provincial offences court in London handed down the convictions on Friday.

In the December 2018 incident, a worker was struck and injured by a falling bundle of rebar that fell off a trailer as it was being loaded.

At the time, the ministry says the worker had been using an overhead crane to load rebar bundles onto a flatbed gooseneck trailer outside the facility. The trailer had been parked alongside another trailer, with about 22 inches separating them, the ministry said.

“The bundles of steel rebar being loaded varied in size. Some bundles included long rebar that exceeded the length of the trailer’s 26-foot flatbed portion. As a result, a portion of these bundles rested, at an incline, on the gooseneck of the trailer,” read a ministry court bulletin.

“The worker was operating the remote device to place a fourth bundle of bent steel rebar on the trailer and was standing between the trailers near the gooseneck section. While moving this bundle into place, two bundles fell off the trailer towards the worker.”

According to the ministry, the two falling bundles contained rebars ranging in length from nine to 30 feet and weighed a total of about 950 pounds. The worker failed to jump out of the way in time and was struck on the hands by the longer rebar pieces and was taken to hospital.

The ministry said the company failed to “ensure material was placed or stored so that the material would not tip, collapse, or fall,” in violation of section 45(b) of the Regulation for Industrial Establishments (Regulation 851/90).

The firm also violated section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), stating that an employer shall ensure the measures and procedures prescribed in OHSA are carried out in the workplace.

The company pleaded guilty, and a fine of $30,000 was handed down by the court, the ministry says.

In the January 2019 incident, a worker was critically injured as they used a rotary bender machine to process rebar into a specific shape, as asked by a supervisor.

According to the ministry, the rotary bender machine, into which pieces of straight rebar are manually fed between rollers, was operated by a single worker with foot-activated controls.

At the time of the incident, the machine’s original levelling pad, on which pieces of rebar would be placed before being fed into the machine, had been worn down.

Instead of being replaced, what was used regularly as a stop-gap measure, the ministry says, was an unsecured 13-inch scrap piece of metal that would rest on the worn-down pad.

As rebar was being fed into the machine by hand, the unfastened makeshift levelling pad, located in front of the rollers on the bending table, began to move, prompting the worker to adjust it.

“It was during this process that the worker was pulled by the rebar into a pinch point. This area was not equipped with a guard. The worker suffered critical injuries,” read the court bulletin.

The injury came months after ministry inspectors visited the company twice in the summer of 2018, issuing 18 orders requiring that equipment inside the facility be equipped with guarding, or for existing guarding to be maintained properly.

Though the company complied with the orders, the ministry notes that it did not issue any orders for, and did not specifically inspect, equipment outside in the yard. As a result, the company did not install guards on the yard equipment, which included a bender machine.

The ministry says the firm did not ensure the machine the worker was using was “equipped with a guard or device to prevent access to an exposed moving part that could endanger a worker,” in violation of section 24 of Regulation for Industrial Establishments (Regulation 851/90), and sections 25(1)(c) and 27(1)(a) of OHSA.

The company and the supervisor, Todd McLean, both pleaded guilty and were fined $65,000 and $2,000, respectively.

In addition, the court also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act.