Family-owned Adelaide wholesale business Olga’s Fine Foods has been fined more than $10,000 after one of its machines crushed a 66-year-old employee’s finger tip.
According to evidence tendered in court, Margaret Foote, a team leader on a schnitzel production line, opened a simple latch on a machine’s guard in January last year to investigate a grating noise coming from its motor.
While the 20-year-old machine was in operation, she touched its drive chain to check whether it needed to be oiled. The tip of her latex glove was caught in the machine, pulling her fingertip into a sprocket and chain pinch point and causing a traumatic crush injury.
Foote was taken to hospital, where her fingertip was surgically removed.
She had two months off work before returning to work for a month, and then retiring.
Olga’s pleaded guilty to a breach of the Work Health and Safety Regulations 2012 and was fined $10,500 for failing to ensure that the machine’s guard was as difficult as practicable to disable or bypass.
Magistrate Stephen Mark Leischke found that the guard was designed to be very easily opened, and that there should have been a physical barrier on the guard that could only be altered or removed by the use of tools.
According to Leischke’s judgement, the business avoided the maximum penalty of $30,000 because of its early guilty plea, demonstrated contrition, the mitigating circumstances – and the seriousness – of the offence, and the positive steps Olga’s has taken since.
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The magistrate noted that following the incident, SafeWork investigators issued a Prohibition Notice requiring modification of the guarding, and that Olga’s quickly complied, by securing the guard and other guards with allen key bolts.
Olga’s, which has about 35 employees, also arranged for the Australian Meat Industry Council to forward an e-bulletin to its members explaining the offence and the inadequacy of training and directions.
According to the judgement, Foote had performed checks to see whether the machine’s chain was lubricated in the same way over several years before the incident.
It noted that Foote had been present on a number of occasions while her supervisor had performed the task – which was usually carried out while the machine was running – but the supervisor was not aware that Foote was also doing it. Foote had never been told not to open the guard, to stop the machine before doing so, or not to touch the chain.
Olga’s acknowledged there was no express prohibition against employees opening the guard.
Leischke found that inadequate training essentially left Foote to work out for herself how to deal with the indications the drive chain may need lubricating.
“I accept the victim was carrying out hazardous action in toughing the side of the chain to assess its state of lubrication,” his judgement reads.
“However she was doing no more than performing her Team Leader duties as she understood them, and in a way she had done for years.”
Olga’s conducted a superficial risk assessment of the machine in 2010.
Leischke noted that in response to the recognised risk of crush injuries, the only stated control measure implemented by the business was work health and safety training.
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While Olga’s had general safety instructions for employees and a range of other safety management and control systems at the time of the incident, no written operating procedures existed addressing the use of the guards for routine maintenance purposes.
Foote said the business had provided her with income maintenance during her time off work and covered her medical expenses, but had not provided any compensation for the permanent damage to her finger.
Managing director of Olga’s, George Ujvary, apologised to Foote and to SafeWork SA during the sentencing hearing.
This is the second time in five years that Olga’s has been sentenced for a machine guarding offence.
In 2009, the court imposed a substantial penalty after an employee suffered a severe crush injury to her right hand in 2006 while clearing a machine without any physical guard, and with a deliberately disabled interlocking mechanism.
While the most recent offence was against a different safety obligation, Leischke ruled that the previous offence was a relevant background circumstance for the court to take into account.
In a statement to InDaily, Ujvary said that following the 2006 incident “our plant and procedures were reviewed for safety and significant investment was made on new machinery, guarding, training for employees and the implementation of updated WHS policies and procedures”.
“This should have prevented the circumstances that contributed to the 2013 incident but did not,” he said.
“We take full responsibility. We have in the past two years responded positively and strongly.
“Remedial action was immediately undertaken and completed in 2013 including updates to machinery, training and procedures.
“On top of this, we took the initiative last month to issue a full statement and warning to all members of the Australian Meat Industry Council.
“We cooperated fully and readily with SafeWork SA. SafeWork SA has inspected our plant without notice in recent months and no concerns have arisen from those visits.”
Ujvary also accepted the penalty imposed for the latest incident, and said that his business “places the highest priority on the welfare and safety of its employees and provides a safe, efficient and reliable workplace”.
“As noted by the Magistrate, this matter did not reflect in any way on food quality, integrity or standards, which we have upheld since we started in 1978.
“We commit to continuing to provide safe and satisfying careers for our valued 35 staff, many of whom have been with us for many years as part of the Olga’s family.”
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