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 

WorkSafe New Zealand is again urging the forestry sector to reflect on what more it can do to improve safety, as the details of yet another worker death emerge from a court prosecution.

Jake Duncan was fatally struck when a log came loose and hurtled 325 metres down a hill at Tangoio, north of Napier, in June 2021. The 23-year-old was doing work known as breaking out, where felled logs are connected to a hauling machine for extraction.

The log had been put in place as a “plug” which acted as a bridge for other logs to slide over, until it gave way with tragic consequences. This uncommon method is known as plugging and bridging.

The pre-harvest risk assessment only listed two hazards for the entire site, and did not properly consider the risks of the plugged log dislodging. The company should also have had better controls in place to minimise the risk of workers like Jake Duncan being struck.

These health and safety failures led to WorkSafe charging Mr. Duncan’s employer, Logged on Logging 2020 Limited for breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

In a reserved decision, the Napier District Court has ordered Logged on Logging to pay reparations of $332,187.

Another company, Forest Management (NZ) Limited, was sentenced in late 2023 for its health and safety failures unrelated to the death.

WorkSafe New Zealand
November 2024 

A Healesville caravan park has been convicted and fined $475,000 after a camper was crushed by a falling tree branch.

Yarra Valley Park Lane Holiday Park Pty Ltd, that operated the BIG4 Yarra Valley Holiday Park, was sentenced in the Melbourne County Court after earlier being found guilty by a jury of a single charge of failing to ensure the workplace was safe and without risks to health.

The court also issued an adverse publicity order requiring the company to publicise the offence, its consequences, and the penalty imposed in an industry publication.

In March 2021, the camper was inside his tent on a designated site at the caravan park when a large tree branch fell onto his tent during the night, causing fatal head injuries.

WorkSafe investigators found park operators had not engaged an arborist for a general assessment of trees in the park since 2015 and did not have in place a documented system for inspecting trees or a policy on how frequently they should be inspected.

The court heard an inspection of 277 trees at the park conducted after the fatal incident identified 137 trees requiring risk mitigation works, including 85 requiring works within a year.

A jury found it was reasonably practicable for the caravan park to reduce the risk of falling branches by engaging an arborist to complete annual tree assessments of trees at the site and following the arborist’s recommendations.

WorkSafe Victoria
November 2024 

Data from ACC shows that there have been 200,000 claims paid for people injured while working from home since the start of 2019.

The number had trended down, from 35,896 new claims in 2019 to 35,336 in 2021, 30,711 in 2023, and 24,309 in the year to date.

In 2019, there were almost 50,000 active claims, which can include claims made in previous years for which payments were still being made.

Injuries caused by things such as lifting and carrying were most common, with 6,720 this year so far. That was followed by loss of balance and puncture injuries.

Most injuries were soft tissue injuries, followed by lacerations, punctures, and stings. Just over 770 people in the year to date have suffered a fracture or dislocation while working from home. Almost 300 suffered from burns.

The lower back and spine were the most common injury sites, followed by fingers and thumbs.

Work-from-home claims in the years from 2019 to 2024 totalled more than $800 million.

ACC injury prevention programme lead James Whitaker said injuries were more likely to happen in people’s own homes than anywhere else: “Slips, trips, and falls are the biggest contributor to injuries in New Zealand. About 770,000 New Zealanders get injured from a slip, trip, or fall in any given year, and home is the most common place for that to occur.

“We know that walking before a fall is the most common prior activity, which means these injuries are likely due to multi-tasking.”

Jim Roberts, a partner at Hesketh Henry, said employers had a general duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure as far as was reasonably practicable the health and safety of staff. That was not limited to work premises and should include working from home, he said.

The term “reasonably practicable” means the employer must make an assessment of the likelihood of the hazard or risk (that working remotely may pose) occurring, the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or risk, what the employer should have known about the hazard or risk, including how the risk could be eliminated or minimised including the availability of minimising the risk, and then and only after a thorough assessment, the costs associated with eliminating, or minimising, the risk.

A helpful rule of thumb is said to be, the greater the risk, the more is expected to be done about it. Employers should note that hazards or risks working from home may pose are not limited to those that may cause physical harm. Workers who work from home may face social isolation and psycho-social harm as a result. Employers should be aware of these when conducting a risk assessment.

However, it is commonly accepted that home is not the employer’s workplace, and they have a limited ability to control and manage risks. Employers will be heavily reliant on self-reporting from their workers. Workers have a corresponding duty to ensure their own health and safety while working, which goes hand in hand with the employer’s obligation.

RNZ
November 2024

A Kent-based plastics manufacturer has been fined £400,000 after an employee was seriously injured by a forklift truck.

The man was struck by the vehicle while walking to collect materials at FloPlast Limited’s site at Eurolink Business Park on 4 July 2023. The driver of the forklift truck failed to see the worker, who sustained multiple leg fractures and a dislocated ankle, requiring him to have a metal plate fitted in his left leg.

The HSE’s investigation found a number of measures lacking at the site in Sittingbourne:

• FloPlast Limited had no documented safe system of work and that nobody was following the measures the firm thought were in place.
• CCTV footage showed multiple drivers and pedestrians circulating in close proximity.
• A site inspection by HSE found employees were not observing one way systems or following systems of work.
• The HSE also established that there was no system in place to monitor compliance or to remind employees and drivers of the systems of work.
• It was found that nobody had assessed the vehicles being used by workers to ensure they provided good visibility.

FloPlast Limited, of Eurolink Business Park, Sittingbourne, Kent, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The company was fined £400,000 and ordered to pay £5,567 in costs.

HSE inspector Peter Bruce said: “Poor vehicle and pedestrian segregation in the workplace is a common cause of fatal incidents and injuries. The employee in this instance suffered multiple fractures and has had to have a metal plate put into their leg which they will have for the rest of their life.

“Employers need to ensure that they have suitable measures in place to segregate out pedestrians and vehicles. This includes: the provision of safe systems of work, appropriate training procedures and systems for ensuring compliance with those measures.

“Where it is identified that employees are not following these measures, employers should consider the reasons behind this implementing further measures as appropriate to the risk.”

This HSE prosecution was brought by HSE enforcement lawyer Neenu Bains and supported by HSE paralegal officer Daniel Adams.

HSE
November 2024