Excavating Company Faces Occupational Health and Safety Charges

The Department of Government Services announced today that Farrell’s Excavating Limited and one of its employees have been charged with violations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations in relation to an incident that occurred in Conception Bay South in June 2010. The charges are the result of an investigation by the Occupational Health and Safety Branch.

The incident involved a company employee who is alleged to have operated an excavator in an unsafe manner while removing asphalt during repaving of a parking lot. There were no injuries involved.

The company has been charged with three violations under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations which relate generally to its alleged failure to protect those not in its employ, to ensure that protection from flying fragments is used, and to ensure that a worker is not within range of the swinging movement of mobile equipment.

The supervisor has been charged with four violations which allege that he failed to cooperate with other workers at the site to protect their health and safety, to refrain from operating equipment that will create an imminent danger to workers’ or other persons’ health and safety, to ensure that a worker is not in close proximity to the swing radius of equipment, and, as a supervisor, to knowingly operate mobile equipment which could create an undue hazard to the health or safety of a person.

The first appearance for both the company and the supervisor is scheduled for October 26, 2011 at Provincial Court in St. John’s.

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Media contact:
Hugh Donnan
Director of Communications
Department of Government Services
709-729-4860, 725-6511
hughdonnan@gov.nl.ca 

2011 10 14                                                                       10:05 a.m.