Ottawa steel company fined $55,000 after worker injured by unsafely stored building material
An Ottawa steel company has been fined $55,000 for its role in a workplace incident that led to a worker’s injuries.
Eric Lemire Enterprises entered a guilty plea in provincial court in St. Thomas. In addition to the fine, the company will pay a surcharge of 25 percent that is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The incident occurred in September 2021 on a large industrial and commercial building project on Sunset Drive in St. Thomas.
A foreperson and two labourers were rigging open web steel joist trusses to a mobile crane so they could be hoisted. Each truss measured 50 feet long by 4 feet, 5 inches high and weighed approximately 5,700 lbs.
The crew was trying to separate a bundle of four trusses that were jammed together. They were able to separate the two outer trusses, which were then placed upright on either side of the bundle without being braced or secured from tipping.
One of the workers went to retrieve a crowbar at the other end of the bundle and walked back along a path between one of the separated trusses and a stack of metal decking.
At that moment, the two jammed trusses suddenly came apart and knocked the unsecured truss, causing it to tip and injure the worker.
At the time of the event, the trusses were not braced or secured from tipping over and there was no task-specific work procedure or training relating to the safe storage, movement or separation of jammed trusses, despite this being a common issue encountered by the company at other projects.
Eric Lemire Enterprises was found to have failed, as an employer, to ensure material or equipment at a project was stored and moved in a manner that did not endanger a worker.