National Steel Car Limited, a railcar manufacturer based in Hamilton, has been fined a total of $290,000 following two serious workplace incidents, including one fatality, by an Ontario court.
In the first incident on June 3, 2022, a worker was critically injured while moving scrap metal with a gantry crane. A piece of metal fell from the crane’s magnet, resulting in severe injuries to the worker. An investigation by the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development revealed that the magnet had not been thoroughly examined by a competent person to verify its capability of handling the maximum load as required by Ontario Regulation 851. This oversight was a violation of section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
In a separate incident on June 6, 2022, a worker was fatally injured while welding a bulkhead panel to the floor of a railcar. The panel fell on the worker because it had not been adequately secured against tipping or falling, as mandated by section 46 of Ontario Regulation 851. This failure also constituted a breach of section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Following guilty pleas in the Ontario Court of Justice, the company was fined $240,000 for the fatal injury by Justice Davin Garg and $50,000 for the critical injury by Justice of the Peace Alexander Andres. Crown Counsel Dan Phelan and Madeline Chin-Yee represented the prosecution in these cases.
In addition to the fines, the court imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge, which is allocated to a provincial fund to support victims of crime.
The Ministry’s investigation into the critical injury found discrepancies between the magnet’s tagged maximum lifting capacity and the capacity noted in its most recent inspection report. The fatal incident investigation concluded that the company’s failure to install diagonal bulkhead alignment bars before welding allowed the panel to fall when a chain link broke.
Since these incidents, National Steel Car Limited has updated its standard operating procedures to ensure that diagonal alignment bars are installed before welding begins, aiming to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
