Labour, Training and Skills Development
Convicted: Erie Meat Products Ltd., 3240 Wharton Way, Mississauga, Ontario, a meat processing company.
Location: The company’s meat processing facility at 1400 Mitchell Road South, Listowel.
Description of Offence: A worker who was cleaning excess packaging from a machine was injured after removing interlocking guards from the front of the machine. The company failed to ensure that the hot dog loader/packer machine was locked-out when the worker was removing excess plastic.
Date of Offence: October 12, 2018.
Date of Conviction: November 10, 2020.
Penalty Imposed:
- Following a guilty plea, Erie Meat Products Ltd. was fined $50,000 in provincial offences court in Stratford by Justice of the Peace Gordon Chaput; Crown Counsel Mike Nicol.
- 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.
Background:
- On October 12, 2018, a temporary worker was cleaning a hot dog loader/packer machine.
- The worker removed the interlocking guards from the front of the machine to clean any excess plastic packaging. This exposed the machine and its pre-heating plate.
- As the worker was attempting to remove excess plastic, the machine was actuated and the worker was injured by the machine’s plates. The injured worker was taken to hospital.
- During a subsequent Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development inspection, it was learned that the machine was not locked-out when the injured worker was removing excess plastic from the machine, as required by the Regulation for Industrial Establishments (Ontario Regulation 851) under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
- As such, Erie Meats committed the offence of failing, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 76 of the regulation, as amended, were carried out in the workplace contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the act.