K-G Spray-Pak fined for worker’s forklift injury

NEWMARKET, Ontario – K-G Spray-Pak Inc., a manufacturer of aerosol products was fined $60,000 after pleading guilty in a worker injury case.

On May 24, 2018,  a temporary staffing agency worker at K-G Spray-Pak’s plant at 8001 Keele Street, Vaughan, Ontario, was assigned the task of picking finished aerosol cans off the end of the plant’s Line #1 and packing them into boxes placed on wooden pallets. To prepare for this task, the worker used a manual pump truck to retrieve a stack of pallets from another location in the plant.

While walking backwards on the way back to the end of Line #1, pulling the full pump truck, the worker was struck by a moving lift truck which was being operated in reverse, and which was also heading to the end of Line #1, to pick up pallets of finished product. The worker suffered injuries as a result.

A Ministry of Labour investigation into the incident determined that there were no barriers, warning signs or other safeguards in that area of the plant (the end of Line #1), to protect workers from vehicular traffic.

Section 25(1)(c) of Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act provides that an employer shall ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by the act and regulations are complied with at the workplace. Section 20 of the Regulation for Industrial Establishments prescribes that “barriers, warning signs or other safeguards for the protection of all workers in an area shall be used where vehicle or pedestrian traffic may endanger the safety of any worker.”

K-G Spray Pak failed to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 20 of the regulation were complied with. This is an offence pursuant to section 66(1) of the act.

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