Brampton Company Slapped With Huge Fine After Steel Beams Fall on Worker

After a worker sustained critical injuries on the job last year, a steel company is facing the consequences.

After a worker sustained critical injuries on the job last year, a steel company is facing the consequences.

Steelcon Fabrication Inc. (62 Progress Court) – a Brampton company that manufactures and supplies steel beams and columns – must pay a $70,000 fine after several steel beams fell on a worker. And, reportedly, the worker’s supervisor wasn’t much help either.

According to the province, it was July 11, 2016, when an employee at Steelcon was loading steel beams onto a flat-bed trailer.

Here’s what happened:

“After loading two piles of beams onto the trailer using an overhead crane, the worker was told to place the beams in a more secure and neater manner. This meant that the worker had to reconfigure the beams and insert wooden blocks between each beam to prevent movement during transport.”

But the supervisor in the scenario didn’t step up to the plate. In fact, the province says that the supervisor didn’t monitor how the worker was doing their job, or give the worker any instruction on how to do the job safely.

Improper safety practices can have severe effects.

“When the worker tried to put a chain around the first pile of beams in order to move it to insert a wooden block, the pile of beams shifted position, tipped over and fell on top of the worker.”

It almost goes without saying that the worker sustained critical injuries and was taken to the hospital.

Further investigation revealed that the beams were never properly secured onto the trailer in the first place, which would have prevented them from tipping at all. 

What’s more – the worker was never trained on how to safely secure the beams so that they would not tip.

Steelcon was found to have failed to ensure that safe measures were carried out at the workplace, as per the Occupational Health and SAfety Act. 

The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

This isn’t the first time Steelcon has been convicted for worker injuries.

Back in 2011, the company was fined $32,500 for failing to ensure that materials were moved in a safe manner. A worker suffered permanent injuries as a result.