A Shepparton concrete pipe manufacturing company has been fined $275,000 after one of its workers died after being crushed in a workplace accident in 2018.
Precast Civil Industries Pty Ltd, trading as MC Pipes, pleaded guilty in the County Court to failing to provide and maintain a safe system of work.
The charge comes after the death of Nathan Lewis, 25, at the Provincial Cres business in Shepparton on September 21, 2018.
Mr Lewis, who was working as a leading hand, died after he was drawn into a concrete press and crushed by the conveyor while cleaning the machine.
On the day of his death, Mr Lewis was cleaning the rollers on the Top Werk Prinzing-Pfeiffer machine, known as the red radial press.
To clean it, employees have to manually hammer hardened concrete off the rollers of the press about every three months.
Judge Justin Hannebery said while there was no documented procedure for cleaning the rollers, investigations found the usual procedure was to use a man cage on a forklift where an employee was lifted under the conveyor and hit the rollers with a hammer to remove the concrete.
The court was told that on this day, Mr Lewis climbed over a guard rail next to the control desk and stood on the work bench of the red press where he used a hammer on the conveyor rollers to remove hardened concrete that had accumulated during production.
The work bench had stopped operating, but the concrete feed conveyor was still operating at the time.
Mr Lewis made contact with a return roller on the underside of the concrete feed conveyor and was subsequently drawn in and crushed by the conveyor.
Judge Hannebery said another press, that made different sized pipes, had self-cleaning rollers, but this press did not.
Judge Hannebery said the company had failed to implement measures including installing self-cleaning rollers on the machine, as well as other measures to prevent employees from bypassing the system to clean the rollers, such as fencing that would stop them from climbing over the guard rail.
“The risks imposed by entanglement in a conveyor and fall from height ... were known to the employer and addressed to some extent by the administrative and engineering controls already implemented,” he said.
“What the tragic death of Mr Lewis highlighted was that the measures implemented were inadequate”.
“By its guilty plea, Precast recognises that a reasonable employer, prior to the incident, ought to have recognised the capacity for employees to bypass the safety mechanisms in place on the radial press.”
“Whilst the roller cleaning task was undertaken relatively infrequently, Precast ought to have foreseen the significant possibility that an employee might undertake that task in a manner other than the usual forklift and cage process.”
Judge Hannebery said there were multiple safety measures that were available to eliminate or reduce the risk of death.
However, he noted the earlier plea by Precast Civil Industries Pty Ltd, and accepted it was indicative of remorse.
The judge also accepted the company responded afterwards “in a manner of a company that values the safety of its employees”.
In handing down his sentence, Judge Hannebery made a point of addressing Mr Lewis’ family.
“The sentence ... is a reflection of a large number of factors which I am required by law to consider and is no measure of the worth of Mr Lewis’ life,” he said.
“Imposing a fine is not an assignation of monetary worth to the victim’s life, an indication of the triviality of the offending or about compensating the victim, rather it is a reflection of the risk-based offences that comprised the Occupations Health and Safety Act.”