Government of Western Australia | A spray painting and sandblasting company has been dealt the biggest ever fine under Western Australia’s workplace safety and health laws over the death of a 16-year-old worker in 2023.
RPC Surface Treatment Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to two charges of failing to ensure the health and safety of a worker and was issued a global fine in the Perth Magistrates Court.
In June 2023, a labourer who assisted with spray painting and sandblasting was killed when a steel beam weighing approximately 425kg suspended from an overhead monorail system fell on his chest.
The steel beam was attached to the monorail at each end by S-hooks (fabricated steel hooks in an s-shape) connected to chain slings. The beam had been primed and coated and was left suspended to dry in the main spray booth.
Early on the morning of 15 June 2023, the labourer and three other workers were instructed to move the beams to another area where they were to be collected later in the day.
When the labourer was pushing the beam by hand, the S-hooks deformed and straightened out under the load and the beam fell onto him, causing fatal injuries.
The workers at RPC routinely selected lifting devices by a process of trial and error, and they were not required to determine the weight of the load prior to suspending it.
The weight was estimated via a visual inspection and whether it had been unloaded by hand or with a forklift, and the S-hooks did not have a known working load limit or rated capacity.
In March 2021, WorkSafe inspectors had issued a Prohibition Notice to RPC prohibiting the activity of working underneath suspended loads.
While this notice did not relate to the monorail or S-hooks directly, it did direct RPC to the same risk, namely being crushed by falling objects while working under suspended loads.
