Brampton business fined after worker injured

A B r a m p t o n – b a s e d module assembly company is on the hook after it was charged with not implementing safety procedures, resulting in a worker accident last year. The court case is related to an incident that took place on July 12, 2018, when a worker was operating on an assembly line at Android-Brampton LLC’s facility on Precidio Court. The worker was present at an assembly line that installed half-shafts into Fiat-Chrysler model vehicles. The worker would accomplish their task by using a device called the Knight Air Lift Assist, a pneumatic arm that is used to pick up items from shipping boxes and place them on an installation fixture on the assembly line. The device is typically suspended from an overhead bridge (which includes a crane bridge). On the day of the incident, the worker was using the life-assist device when the southern end of the crane bridge /horizontal beam detached from the left side overhead trolley assembly and fell. This caused the pneumatic device and attached Knight Air Lift Assist / device to fall and strike the worker. The worker was hospitalized afterwards. A subsequent investigation by the (then) Ministry of Labour revealed that the secondary restraint cable holding the crane bridge to the trolley had snapped. Indentation marks on the body of the trolley showed that a secondary restraint cable had held the weight of the crane bridge for some time before snapping. The investigation later determined that failure of the crane was a recurring event, dating back to a previous overhead crane failure in 2017. The Ministry ruled that Android-Brampton had not implemented measures to prevent this failure from recurring. Android-Brampton pled guilty to the incident, and was subsequently fined $65,000 Tuesday in Brampton court. The company was also ordered to pay a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. In the court’s ruling, Android-Brampton was noted as having failed to ensure that the trolley assembly eyebolt connectors and stop plates on the crane bridge were maintained in good condition, contrary to section 25(1)(b) of the act..