A fire that left many South Koreans in a panic about the reliability of electric vehicles has prompted the country to take unprecedented measures to assuage public fears over battery safety. 

Earlier in 2024, an unplugged Mercedes-Benz electric sedan caught fire and exploded, destroying an underground car park in Incheon, west of Seoul. The blaze left more than 200 families homeless for weeks and took firefighters more than eight hours to extinguish.

The incident quickly soured public perception of battery-powered cars, with most of the news coverage and posts on social media focused around the risk of EV fires and South Korea’s lack of safety regulations. Discussions among car manufacturers and lawmakers followed, leading the government to announce an overhaul of EV policies in early September.

The new set of regulations included mandating carmakers disclose the brands of their batteries, expanding the scope of safety inspections for existing EVs and preventing vehicles from being fully charged.

The government has also directly stepped in to ensure the safety of batteries via a state-run certification system. The pilot project has been running since mid-October with five companies taking part.

The project is aimed at improving EV safety by having the government examine and certify the safety of EV batteries before installation. Before the initiative, EVs were sold in South Korea without any third-party safety tests. Under the new system, state-run agencies like the Korea Automobile Testing and Research Institute will put batteries through their paces before installation, ensuring they meet government-backed safety certification standards.

The government is also mandating carmakers and cell manufacturers disclose more details about their batteries. Previously, companies only shared the capacity and maximum output of a battery. Now, they’re required to specify the battery type (prismatic, pouch or cylindrical) and the raw materials used.

Officials say the pilot should provide consumers with significantly more information when purchasing an EV. Its full implementation is expected from February.

New buildings are also now required to feature enhanced fire monitoring systems and use more fire-resistant materials. Smaller fire trucks will be deployed nationwide, starting next year, so that they can enter underground lots. These measures are especially critical since most Koreans live in high-density flats, where a large number of charging stations are located in underground garages.

The government has pledged to work with its EV safety task force team through the end of the year to develop further measures to mitigate fire risks.

South Korea Morning Post
Accurate at time of publication | November 2024 

Spain’s government has approved a “paid climate leave” of up to four days for workers to avoid travelling during weather emergencies, a month after floods killed 230 people. 

Several companies came under fire after the October 2024 catastrophe for ordering employees to keep working despite a red alert issued by the national weather agency.

The firms said the authorities failed to inform them sufficiently and sent telephone alerts too late during the European country’s deadliest floods in decades.

The new measure aims to “regulate in accordance with the climate emergency” so that “no worker must run risks,” Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz told public broadcaster RTVE.

If emergency authorities raise the alarm about a risk, “the worker must refrain from going to work,” said Díaz.

Employees can resort to a reduced working day beyond the four-day period, a mechanism that already exists for emergencies, the government said.

Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo warned the cost of extreme weather events could double by 2050 as the government confirmed €2.3 billion of fresh aid for flood victims.

Scientists say climate change driven by human activity is fuelling the increased length, frequency, and ferocity of natural disasters.

Associated Foreign Press
Accurate at time of publication | November 2024 

Following a guilty plea in the Provincial Offences Court in Woodstock, Saputo Products Laitiers Canada S.E.N.C./Saputo Dairy Products Canada GP (Saputo) has been fined $79,500 and ordered to pay a 25% victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act due to a June 2023 incident which saw a worker being critically injured while attempting to clean waste cheese particles out of a groove in a conveyor drive roller. 

The court heard that, on 4 June 2023, a worker was cleaning and sanitizing the equipment used to process and package various cheese products.

The fixed-in-place guards, designed to prevent worker access to in-running nip hazards, were removed from a conveyor to allow the worker access to all parts of the machine for cleaning.

While attempting to clean waste cheese particles that were stuck in the groove of a conveyor drive roller, the worker was critically injured. The conveyor had been running while the worker was cleaning it.

A Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development investigation found that worker would not have been injured had the conveyor been equipped with a guard to protect the worker from accessing the in-running nip hazard.

Saputo failed, as an employer, to ensure the measures and procedures prescribed by section 25 of the Regulation for Industrial Establishments were carried out in the workplace, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development
Accurate at time of publication | November 2024 

Two companies have been fined more than £100,000 after a man fell 30 feet through a fragile skylight as he was working on a roof.

Nicolas Vilela suffered multiple injuries in the incident at Graystone Action Sports Centre, on Brunel Avenue in Salford on 23 November 2022.

Now 43, Mr Vilela had been fixing a solar panel into position on the roof when he took a step back and fell through one of the skylights to the skate park below, narrowly missing several people. His horrific injuries included a partial lung collapse, broken ribs, pelvis, femur and left wrist as well as fractures to lower vertebrae. He spent a month in hospital.

The HSE’s investigation found that H2O Renewables Limited (H2O) were the principal contractor engaged for work to install solar panels to the roof of the indoor skate park and had engaged Green Projects Ltd (GPL) as sub-contractor to fit the roof mounted system. H2O planned the work during which time they were aware of multiple fragile rooflights in close proximity to where the solar panels would be fitted.

The risk assessment produced by H2O stated cones and warning tape would be used as a control measure to warn operatives of the risk of falling through the fragile roof lights, and fixed scaffolding would be used to prevent risk of falls from the perimeter of the roof. By the time the work started on 22 November 2022, the fixed scaffold had only partially been erected, and only the cones had been placed next to the skylights.

Despite the insufficient control measures being present to mitigate the risks from work at height, GPL’s operatives were allowed to start work to fit the solar panels.

The investigation also found that H2O Renewables Limited and Green Projects Ltd, had failed to take suitable and sufficient precautions to ensure the safety of workers on the roof. Both companies had also failed to put in place a safe system of work for the installation of solar panels that were to be fitted in close proximity to many of the fragile roof lights present.

H2O Renewables Limited of Hazel Grove, Stockport, pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 13(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. They were fined £106,720 and ordered to pay £40,995 costs.

At the same hearing, Green Projects Ltd of Albert Street, Oldham, pleaded guilty to breaching regulations 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005. They were fined £13,340 and ordered to pay £1,600 costs.

Speaking as the companies were fined, Mr Vilela said the incident had affected him both physically and emotionally: “It has had an overwhelming and complicated impact on my life, having, until then, been a very active, dynamic person”

“A fall from a height of 10 metres is not something you survive. I broke my femur, pelvis, wrist, vertebrae and ribs. A lot worse could have happened but I am grateful for the fact that I am alive and can walk, but I will live with this trauma for the rest of my life.

“I have developed a fear of heights and a fear of any physical activity that could cause me harm. I am also really worried about how my body will respond in old age as a result of these injuries.

“I am unable to walk for more than a kilometre without feeling pain and getting very tired due to the loss of strength and mobility in my leg. My pelvic fracture impedes me from doing any heavy lifting and I live in fear of damaging it even more.”

After the hearing, HSE inspector Phil Redman said: “This was a very serious incident that Mr Vilela was extremely lucky to survive. A fall from this distance frequently results in life-changing injuries or death.

“It is a timely reminder that all work at height activities must be suitably planned, managed and monitored using a safe system of work.”

This prosecution was brought by HSE enforcement lawyer Kate Harney and paralegal officer Rebecca Withell.

HSE
Accurate at time of publication | December 2024 

A Co. Antrim company has been fined a total of £2,000 at Ballymena Magistrates’ Court for breaches of packaging waste legislation. 

Galgorm Group of 7 Corbally Road, Ballymena pleaded guilty to the offences.

Galgorm Group pleaded guilty to two charges under the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2007, namely failure to purchase required number of Packaging Recovery Notes by the 31 January 2023 deadline, and failure to submit a Certificate of Compliance in relation to the 2022 compliance year.

The company was fined £1,000 in respect of each charge and an offenders levy.

The Northern Ireland Environment Agency contacted the company on numerous occasions reminding them they were required to purchase Packaging Recovery notes as a producer of packaging in 2022.

The company failed to purchase the appropriate recycling and recovery evidence for that year.

The company also failed to submit the required Certificate of Compliance to the Agency.

Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs
Accurate at time of publication | November 2024 

The Ontario government has introduced the Working for Workers Six Act, 2024, which would build on the previous five Working for Workers acts with a suite of proposed measures to protect the health and wellbeing of workers, bring more people into the skilled trades, and keep costs down for Ontario workers. 

In addition to previously announced proposed measures, including creating a new parental leave and long-term illness leave, expanded cancer coverage for firefighters, and WSIB changes that will give more money back to Ontario workers and businesses, this package would support workplace safety by cracking down on bad actor employers, with mandatory minimum fines of $500,000 for corporations convicted of repeated offences within a two-year period under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The government is also proposing to expand existing roadside safety laws under the Highway Traffic Act to require motorists to slow down and move over for roadworkers, such as highway maintenance workers.

The proposed sixth Working for Workers Act and its related regulatory changes, if passed, would:

• Enhance safety for roadside workers by expanding existing requirements for drivers to slow down and move over when passing emergency vehicles and tow trucks under the Highway Traffic Act to also include prescribed work-related vehicles at roadside with flashing amber lights activated (excluding construction zones with posted speed limits).
• Support the safety and wellbeing of workers and their families by:
  • Creating a new parental leave for parents through adoption and surrogacy so people never have to choose between being a worker or a parent.
  • Creating a new 27-week job-protected long-term illness leave for workers with a serious medical condition which would be one of the longest provincial leaves in Canada.
  • Requiring properly-fitting PPE for women in all sectors to bring more women into the trades.
• Improve cancer coverage for firefighters, investigators, and volunteers by removing the requirement that a firefighter’s primary-site colorectal diagnosis must be made before the age of 61, and lowering the required duration of service for primary-site kidney cancer from 20 to 10 years, the lowest duration of service in Canada.
• Grow Ontario’s workforce by investing up to $1.4 billion through the Skills Development Fund to train over 1 million workers in every corner of the province, and attract more health care workers to Ontario by expanding immigration pathways for qualified health care workers.
• Keep costs down for workers and businesses by giving back over $2.5 billion through rebating WSIB surpluses to hundreds of thousands of safe employers, reducing business premium rates to the lowest average level in half a century, and putting more money back into workers’ pockets by waiving the fee for apprentices taking their first Certificate of Qualification exam.
• Honour workers by celebrating the contributions of the “Golden Generation of Skilled Tradespeople” who built the province into what it is today, and who are passing on their wisdom and expertise to the next generation of workers to shape Ontario’s future, by creating a new Skilled Trades Week during the first week of November.
• Crack down on bad actors that exploit newcomers and harm workers by introducing new standards, fines, and lifetime bans for fraudulent immigration representatives that exploit newcomers.

The proposed Working for Workers Six Act, 2024 builds on the actions across five previous Working for Workers Acts since 2021 to grow Ontario’s workforce, keep costs down for workers and businesses, and support the wellbeing of workers and their families.

Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development
Accurate at time of publication | November 2024 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have announced a settlement with BCP Ingredients Inc. to resolve alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act at its Verona, Missouri, facility. 

According to EPA, the company had a release of ethylene oxide (EtO), a toxic and flammable substance, and failed to comply with regulations intended to protect workers and the surrounding community and the environment from chemical releases.

BCP manufactures choline chloride, which is an animal feed additive and requires EtO in its manufacturing process. It also repackages EtO for other users.

Pursuant to the settlement, the company has agreed to:

• Pay a $300,000 civil penalty.
• Invest in a state-of-the-art scrubber system that is estimated to remove up to 16,550 pounds of additional EtO air emissions over its useful life.
• Spend $350,000 to implement projects benefiting the surrounding community, including providing:
  • Emergency equipment for the Verona Fire Department.
  • Two vehicles to be used as mobile health clinics.
  • Localised medical services through the Cox Health Foundation to communities at or near the facility, including the cities of Verona, Aurora, and Monett, and Barry and Lawrence counties in Missouri.

Ethylene oxide (EtO) is a hazardous air pollutant that is associated with potential health risks for acute and long-term exposure, including increased risk of certain cancers.

EPA conducted an inspection in June 2022, after an EtO release at the facility in April 2022. EPA determined that BCP violated the Clean Air Act by:

• Failing to develop operating procedures and conduct hazard analyses for preventing and/or responding to accidental releases of EtO.
• Failing to fix malfunctioning EtO alarms, which allowed the April 2022 EtO release to continue for over seven hours.
• Failing to conduct required audits of the facility’s compliance with the Clean Air Act and correct deficiencies identified in prior audits.
• Failing to conduct annual coordination with emergency responders.
• Failing to have written safety information for the facility’s ventilation system.
• Failing to update the facility’s Risk Management Plan every five years.

BCP agreed to enter into a compliance order with EPA in September 2022 to address these alleged violations and return the facility to compliance. EPA says that BCP has met all the requirements of the compliance order.

The consent decree, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.

United States Environmental Protection Agency
Accurate at time of publication | December 2024 

A southern Adelaide electrical company has been fined $300,000 after a worker died when he became trapped in a pit.

JD Finlay Electrical was sentenced in the South Australian Employment Court. The company was charged for a breach of section 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 following a SafeWork SA investigation.

The charges related to a failure to take adequate steps to identify the hazard created by the work environment and to provide adequate training and safety documents in the performance of the task required to be undertaken.

The worker was tasked with pulling electrical cables through conduit pipes which terminated within the pit on 1 June 2022.

To do so, he lay on the ground and leaned into the pit to pull electrical cables through conduit pipes.

As he attempted to extricate himself from the pit, he was unable to do so. The worker died at the scene of positional asphyxiation.

Work on the day of the incident involved a non-standard pit, access to which was partially obstructed by the presence of an electrical distribution board (EDB) above it.

The particular tasks to be undertaken had not been assessed by a supervisor, nor had any risk assessment for the job been undertaken prior to the workers attending the site.

A trained supervisor was not on site when the incident occurred, and the pit cover had not been removed to assess what lay beneath it.

In his sentencing remarks, Deputy President Judge Crawley said JD Finlay Electrical had shown genuine contrition and remorse and had addressed deficiencies in its systems since the fatality.

He said the failure to undertake an appropriate risk assessment and the reliance upon a worker without appropriate training to identify and manage the risks for himself was a circumstance common to many cases.

SafeWork SA
Accurate at time of publication | December 2024 

Yau Sang Galvanizing (Hot-Dip) Company Limited has been fined $195,000 at the Fanling Magistrates’ Courts for violations of the Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance and the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Lifting Appliances and Lifting Gear) Regulations.

The prosecutions were launched by the Labour Department.

The case involved a fatal accident that occurred on 28 December 2023, in a factory in Yuen Long.

A crane in operation collided with another crane that was being used to suspend a metal block. The metal block moved and struck a worker who was carrying out welding work.

The worker sustained serious injuries and passed away 22 days later.

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Accurate at time of publication | November 2024 

Opus Energy has agreed to pay more than £7million in refunds, redress, and goodwill payments after identifying it overcharged almost 88,000 non-domestic customers between 2003 and 2023.

The non-domestic supplier had two faults in its billing system, meaning customers were temporarily on the wrong tariff or their billing periods were incorrectly duplicated. The faults were initially identified during an audit, after which Opus Energy voluntarily reported itself to the regulator.

These two faults led to 87,825 customers being overcharged over a 20-year period. While 93% of accounts were overcharged by less than £50 in total, one customer, who has since been refunded, overpaid £102,000.

Opus Energy has since resolved the technical faults and will pay £5.5 million in refunds to affected customers. An additional £1.56 million will be paid in goodwill and redress payments.

The supplier has committed not to recover amounts from those customers who were undercharged as a result of the system faults.

It has identified all affected accounts and has processed refunds automatically for current customers. Former customers will be contacted to receive refunds where the refund due is £2.50 or greater.

Any unclaimed refunds and refunds below £2.50 will be paid to the Energy Redress Fund.

Accounts still supplied by Opus Energy have already been refunded.

Ofgem
November 2024

A Wallington-based company has been fined £30,000 at Croydon magistrates’ court for failing to clear a site they owned of waste following numerous warnings.

Spark Properties Ltd was convicted of breaching the Environmental Protection Act 1990 by failing to clear the site of illegal waste in the heart of Croydon’s big-name retail parks. The Environment Agency brought the case after the company ignored an Environment Agency enforcement order to clear the site.

In August 2022, Croydon Council reported major illegal dumping of waste at sites in their borough to the Environment Agency. This included waste dumped at 33 Imperial Way in July 2022. Environment Agency officers contacted the landowner, Spark Properties Ltd.

As the landowner, Spark Properties Ltd was legally obliged to clear the illegally dumped waste. Following regular correspondence with the company over nearly a year, and due to lack of progress in clearing the waste, investigators requested the company provide a plan on how they will clear the waste on 13 March 2023.

As The Environment Agency didn’t receive a response to this request, they served a “Section 59ZC” enforcement notice to the company on 31 March 2023. The notice gave the company two months to clear the site.

By 16 June 2023, there wasn’t any progress in clearing the waste, leading the Environment Agency to prosecute Spark Properties Ltd.

The company was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay costs of £18,840.28 and a victim surcharge of £2,000.

Environment Agency
November 2024

Ontario is investing another $32 million in a new programme to provide mental health supports to first responders and public safety personnel.

The new Mental Health Supports for Public Safety Personnel programme (MHS4PSP) will provide specialised services for police officers, firefighters, correctional workers, paramedics, and others who support Ontario’s public safety system.

This funding is part of the $45.2 million announced in the 2022 Budget for programmes focusing on early intervention, access to specialised mental health services and creation of an online provincewide inventory of available services and supports for public safety personnel.

Overall, there was a 140% increase year-on-year in the number of employers struggling to manage poor mental health across their workforce, finds a survey of employers in Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, according to a previous report from the Peninsula Group.

MHS4PSP will also support the creation of an Anti-Stigma Strategy designed to remove potentially harmful stigmas around asking for help. Based on the findings of a recent report, the goal of the strategy is to help create work environments where people feel confident to seek mental health support.

It will include:

• A website with mental health resources specific to public safety personnel.
• A leadership support network.
• Training to equip leaders with the skills and knowledge to support mental health in their organisations.
• Recommended mental health practices for organisations.

The programme initiatives and the Anti-Stigma Strategy will roll out in phases. A call for applications, inviting organisations to apply for funding under the grant, will be rolled out in early 2025.

Canadian Occupational Safety
November 2024