3 Workers Dead, 2 Badly Injured & Western Forest Products Paid $29,000 (C) In Fines
WorkSafeBC has fined a forest company $29,049 for the deaths of three workers in a “high-risk” railway accident on northern Vancouver Island. That’s barely five per cent of the $514,991 fine levied against one municipality for a separate work-place violation related to traffic-control practices in which no employees were injured, much less killed.
Details posted this week on WorkSafeBC’s website reveal that workers with Western Forest Products Inc. were moving railcars loaded with logs on a railway siding, near Woss, in April 2017. Eleven loaded cars on the Englewood Railway rolled out of the siding and onto the main line and struck a maintenance vehicle, pushing it into a backhoe. Three workers died, two were seriously injured.
Western Forest Products reported a net income of $69.2 million in 2018.
The WorkSafeBC investigation determined that a derail device intended to stop free-rolling railcars had not been installed with proper ties and ballast. “The firm is being penalized for failing to ensure the health and safety of all workers,” WorkSafeBC states. “This was a high-risk violation.”
EDIT
https://thenarwhal.ca/fine-for-death-of-three-western-forest-products-workers-criticized-as-inadequate/
