A meat processor plant manufacturer has been fined $44,000 and ordered to pay $9000 reparation to the worker whose leg was broken after he became trapped in a piece of machinery at Affco's Rangiuru meatworks.
Auckland meat processor systems company Realcold Milmech was sentenced in Tauranga District Court on Tuesday after earlier
admitting a charge under the Health and Safety in Employment Act that it supplied a tipper cradle without taking all practical steps to ensure it was made safe for use.
A charge attracts a maximum fine not exceeding $250,000.
The accident occurred on September 16 last year.
The Department of Labour said the company had failed to undertake an on-site risk assessment after installing the halal tipper cradle at Affco's Rangiuru meatworks - and also failed to ensure there were guards in place to prevent workers accessing the equipment while it was operating.
The cradle is operated by means of a hydraulic ramp and rotates around on to the tipper bed for processing of carcasses out of the tipper bed.
The machinery normally was used to processes halal beef but on the day of the accident it was being used to process deer carcasses which are lighter.
Neither AFFCO or the defendant appears to have fully appreciated the potential risk due to the difference in the weights of kills and a deer fell into the tipper cradle, the court was told.
As the victim reached to hook it out with a shepherd's crock he became trapped when a fellow worker on the other side of the plant failed to notice and started the machine. The worker was off work for 14 weeks and suffered significant emotional harm and also suffered financial loss.
Judge Christopher Harding took into account the defendant's previous good record, its co-operation in terms of the investigation and early guilty plea in setting the level of fine and reparation.
A recent newspaper article revealed working in a meat processing plant was the most dangerous job in the Western Bay of Plenty. Figures recently released under the Official Information Act show the Department of Labour had investigated more workplace accidents involving meat processing than any other industry in the Western Bay over the past five years.
Affco New Zealand's Rangiuru plant on State Highway 2 has had 72 workplace accidents in this time - the highest number in the region, with 59 cases requiring labour department action.
