The consequences of not making the workplace safe

Rapid Roller Company, which built and reconditioned rollers for printing and paper-making industries, and manager Raymond Tough pleaded guilty to workplace health and safety charges as a result of the incidents which left one man dead and another with permanent hand injuries.

In May 2006, an employee lost two-thirds of a finger and had the rest of his hand severely damaged while using a lathe, rendering him unable to drive for five months. This incident was not reported to WorkSafe.

In June 2007, Robin Power died when he was dragged into another lathe while using emery paper to remove an anti-rusting chemical from a roller. The practice was common at Rapid Roller and known to Tough and the company.

Power’s clothes were caught on a bolt protruding from the rotating shaft, he was pulled in and suffered appalling fatal injuries.

Rapid Roller was convicted and fined $46,000 in relation to the first incident and convicted and fined $300,000 on the second. Tough was fined $30,000.

Judge Cotterell said complacency was unacceptable and inadequate allowance was made for the potential for human error.

WorkSafe’s investigations found that employees working on rotating machinery were not given close-fitting overalls and Power was regularly seen using sticky tape to secure his sleeves so they couldn’t be caught by the machine; employees weren’t properly supervised to ensure they didn’t wear loose-fitting clothing when operating lathes; no lathes at Rapid Roller were fitted with fixed or interlocked guards to prevent entanglement in the rotating machines; emergency stops for the machine were inadequate; and the lathe was operated in an unguarded state using an unsafe system of work.

The Director of WorkSafe’s Manufacturing, Logistics and Agriculture program, Ross Pilkington, said the situation at Rapid Roller was not unusual: “[The fact that] they’d operated in a particular way for a long time does not mean it’s being done safely. If simple and inexpensive measures had been taken here, it’s likely neither incident would have happened.”