Car part manufacturer requires health and safety check-up
A car parts manufacturer was prosecuted over safety and health failings in their Essex location. An employee fell to the floor through the mezzanine at the Hawkwell workplace. Auto-Plas plead guilty to the charges of health and safety breaches after the incident in May 2011. The employee needed stitches in the hand and had to take two weeks off after the fall. He was taking apart the mezzanine floor when he fell backward to the level below. He unfortunately hit his head on the floor. He also cut his right hand trying to stop his fall.
Workstation risk assessments were not completed for the work requested. There were no work-at-heights protocols in place for the employee to complete the work. The work-at-heights regulations of 2005 state that safety equipment and protective gear must be a part of working at heights. The company failed to provide any of the proper measures requested, thus they have been fined 5,000 pounds and an additional 2,500 pounds for the court costs.
Providing safety gear and following protocol is not tough when work-at-heights is a part of the job. It is, however, something that must be provided by the company and not the worker, since the company has a duty of care to any employee to ensure proper equipment is supplied. This failure will hopefully not happen again for this company and will provide a lesson to other companies who might need work-at-heights tasks completed.
