Food Manufacturer Fined for Workplace Injuries to Employee
A food manufacturing company, Tulip Limited, was ordered to pay a whopping sum of nearly 95,000 pounds after it was found guilty of not taking adequate steps for the safety of its employees.
In a recent court hearing on a two-year-old accident case of one of its employees, the company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Giving a verdict on the case, Norwich Crown Court ordered the company to pay costs of 29,523 pounds and a fine of 65,000 pounds.
The case relates to an accident that occurred at the company’s site at Norfolk on November 27, 2007. One of the company’s employees, Ludmila Jurkevica, was cleaning a blockage in a Multivac machine Since the machine did not have the required guarding and even the worker was not trained on its use, three of her fingers got crushed in the machine.
The company admitted before the court that it had failed to make the required risk assessment for the machine and had failed to prevent access to the dangerous parts of the machinery.
HSE Inspector Steven Gill said in this regard that such machines are extremely dangerous and can cause serious injuries. He advocated proper training and operating instructions for all workers even if English is not their first language. He stressed that companies should not only take steps to identify any defects in machines but also to rectify them as soon as possible.
Gill revealed that in the present case, the defects in the guarding of the machine were documented in the company’s safety audits, yet no steps had been taken to remedy them. He pointed out that if Tulip had implemented safety measures for its workers, this accident could have been avoided.
