A cold storage warehouse facility operator has entered into their second Enforceable Undertaking (EU) following an incident that crushed a labour hire worker’s ankle.
Multi-national company NewCold Pty Ltd, operates two cold storage automated warehouse facilities just a few hundred metres apart on the same road in Truganina. At the NewCold #1 warehouse in January 2022 a worker’s ankle was crushed and fractured while operating a piece of mobile equipment known as a ‘tugger’. The tugger is used to handle palletised goods and is operated from a stand on platform with steering controls. Having received no training in relation to the use of the tugger, and with no system in place to identify untrained workers prior to task allocation, it is not surprising that an incident occurred.
NewCold was charged with a failure to provide information, instruction or training to the worker, and failure to provide a safe workplace by ensuring tasks were only allocated to appropriately trained workers – both breaches of s.21 of the OHS Act. The maximum applicable penalty for a breach of s.21 of the OHS Act in January 2022 was approximately $1.63M.
WorkSafe has now accepted an EU proposed by NewCold in lieu of prosecuting these most recent breaches - the undertaking shares several noticeable similarities to one that was accepted from the company (see previous article) less than 12 months ago.
Despite their current EU including the words “4.2 NewCold has no prior convictions and has not previously submitted an EU to WorkSafe in lieu of a prosecution”, NewCold did, in fact, enter into an EU in late July 2024 as a result of another serious incident.
At the NewCold #2 warehouse in September 2021 a labour hire worker was accessing and crossing an automated conveyor in an attempt to move a pallet that was obstructing the conveyor. When the pallet moved, the conveyor restarted. The worker’s foot became trapped between rollers, and the pallet was hauled over his leg, crushing it with approximately one tonne of weight. The worker had not received training on how to safely cross over automated conveyors.
NewCold was charged with two breaches of s.21 of the OHS Act for their failure to provide and maintain safe plant and a safe system of work, as well as their failure to provide information, instruction, training and supervision. WorkSafe accepted an EU proposed by NewCold in lieu of prosecuting those breaches
In the current EU, NewCold commits to the following:
- install security access gates at cross-over points, to mitigate against operator inattentiveness or non-compliance with administrative controls
- engage with a vocational provider and commit to provide guidance and funding to sponsor an annual OHS annual award for young workers, for a period of five years
- donate $30,000 to the OHS Body of Knowledge to deliver benefits to the industry and community
- engage a consultant and production company to produce two videos covering:
- workplace safety fundamentals for plant; and
- the experience and key learnings of Newcold
In their previous EU, NewCold committed to:
- install security access gates at cross-over points to mitigate against operator inattentiveness or non-compliance with the step-over request system
- engage an occupational physician to carry out a study on the impacts of working in low oxygen environments, with recommendations to minimise the physical and psychological effects of working in hypoxic conditions
- donate $30,000 to the OHS Body of Knowledge to deliver benefits to the industry and community
It is always distressing when workers are injured, but especially so after repeated failures by the same business. When our workplace safety regulator then allows those businesses to avoid prosecution for safety breaches by investing capital into safety measures for their business that should have been in place before an injury occurred, it is infuriating.
Read more: NewCold Enforceable Undertaking sent to WorkSafe
$300,000 safety spend after cold storage warehouse injury | WorkSafe Victoria