Union wants company charged in worker's death
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 | 7:50 AM ET
CBC News
The Quebec Labour Federation is demanding again that a company in St-Eustache be charged for the death of one if its workers.
The province's workplace safety board has released its final report into the accident that killed Steve L'Écuyer, 23, last year.
Union officials have been calling for criminal charges since the accident became known earlier this year. Now they say it is time for Crown prosecutors to take action.
L'Écuyer worked at Transpave, a company in St-Eustache that makes concrete blocks for patios.
On October 11, he was crushed while trying to fix a jammed machine that stacks the blocks.
The province's workplace health and safety board, the CSST, places the blame squarely on company negligence, noting the machinery's safety mechanism had been disabled.
"It was not due to a malfunction of the machine, the machine was working well, but the optical security system was neutralized," explains Daniel Legault of the CSST.
Had the security system not been disabled, the machine would have automatically turned off when L'Écuyer approached it.
On top of that, the CSST found L'Écuyer did not have the proper safety training and the company had no maintenance program in place.
The CSST could have gone further, says federation president Henri Massé, by imposing a penalty on the company.
"It's not a bad report, but it's an incomplete report. We have hoped that the CSST has put a fine at this time and they haven't done it," Massé said.
The CSST has passed the case to police, who have in turn alerted the Crown prosecutor.
Massé wants the province to lay criminal charges against the company to hold it responsible for neglecting the safety of its workers.
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