Scrap metal recycler fined over workplace death

Adelaide scrap metal business Normetals was convicted and fined $52,000 in the SA Industrial Relations Court over the death of a truck driver on its premises in 2006. The driver had completed his first delivery run to Normetals when he was struck and killed by a bundle of steel tubes dislodged by a Normetals forklift operator.

Normetals pleaded guilty to breaching the Occupational Health Safety and Welfare Act, in failing to ensure the safety of a person at a workplace under its management and control.

SafeWork SA prosecuted the company after finding there were no safe operating procedures in place for the loading and unloading of trucks at the workplace. It told the court that the following simple and inexpensive measures could have prevented the death:

• A ‘safe zone’ for visiting drivers during the loading and unloading process.
• A marked ‘exclusion zone’ around the truck to remind drivers of the danger.
• Some form of physical barrier to prevent entry by people to the loading zone.

Industrial Magistrate Stephen Lieschke said: “Normetals had a significant responsibility with respect to the unloading process. It was the Normetals driver who operated the forklift and who directed the unloading on its premises.

“The circumstances that gave rise to the incident were not due to a momentary lapse. The absence of its own safe operating procedures … is a serious breach of its obligations.”

The company highlighted to the magistrate its 25 years of prior operations without a major incident and has since improved its safety systems for loading operations.

SafeWork Executive Director Michele Patterson added: “By any objective standard, what safety system there was for moving heavy loads to and from trucks on the premises was clearly deficient and in breach of the employer’s legal obligations. The extent of that deficiency was such that when the ‘system’ failed, the consequences were tragic.

“Employers should never be lulled into a false sense of security by assuming they will never have a safety incident in the future, simply because they haven’t had one in the past.”