1 June 2011

A cleaning company has today been fined $80,000 for two separate incidents in August last year when employees were badly injured.

The Hawera District Court heard that both incidents happened at a meat processing plant in the town where the company, Ecowize, had the contract to clean the premises.

In the first incident an employee suffered serious burns to her chest, neck and ears when a hose she was using to clean the offal processing room burst and sprayed her with hot water.

In the second incident another employee suffered chemical burns to his eyes when the chemical solution he was using to clean the slaughter room floor splashed out of a bucket onto his face.

“The company didn’t have adequate emergency procedures or hazard identification in place which is unacceptable,” says Department of Labour Service Manager in New Plymouth, Jo Pugh.

“In the first incident on 4 August it was clear the company was not maintaining its equipment properly – causing a hot water hose to burst, leaving an employee seriously injured,” she says.

“Our investigation of the second incident on 25 August found that inadequate equipment was used to hold the chemicals while cleaning and a hosing tube wasn’t long enough to reach the chemicals to input them into the system. We found that the company’s staff monitoring practices were lacking,” Ms Pugh says.

Ecowize is now taking further steps to help staff identify hazards in the workplace and prevent accidents.

ENDS

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