Joinery company director fined £8000 for workshop safety hazards

A London joinery firm and the company director have been fined heavily on account of a number of serious safety breaches that put employees at risk.
 
The company director was prosecuted by HSE after an inspection on 10 February this year identified a number of serious issues including a failure to protect workers from potentially harmful wood dust, noise and hazardous spray paints. He was fined £8,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in his capacity as a director.
  
The Park Royal-based company, who are not BWF members, was fined a total of £24,000 and ordered to pay £1,460 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) and Section 21 of the same Act.
 
On Wednesday 27 November, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard of a number of breaches of health and safety law that the company had allowed such as:
 
– failure to test ventilation systems for extracting potentially harmful wood dust
 
– failure to provide suitable respiratory protective equipment (RPE), controls or any health surveillance for employees working with hazardous spray paints
 
– failure to control noise exposure
 
– failure to provide adequate information, training and supervision to protect workers from hazards, including inhaling chemicals such as isocyanate during spraying processes.
 
The inspection resulted to two Improvement Notices being served but a follow-up inspection in April revealed both were ignored. The court was told that little had changed and that there were still serious faults.
 
After the hearing HSE Inspector Saif Deen said:
 
“Employers have a duty to protect their workers, but this company carried out high risk activities, such as paint spraying and work that exposed employees to prolonged, high levels of noise, with disregard for their health and safety.
 
“The seriousness of these breaches was reflected in the Improvement Notices issued, which both the company and the director ignored. They failed to address the fact that workers were placed at unnecessary risk because of the inadequate RPE provisions, and the complete lack of health surveillance. They were being exposed to potentially harmful sprays and noise, and yet the company had no means of monitoring whether it was causing harm.
 
“The company, under the lead of the director, displayed poor performance over the period of our investigation. HSE will not hesitate to take action against duty holders who shirk their responsibilities in this way.”
 
The safety of your workers is of prime importance. With HSE recovering costs at a rate of £1000/day for inspections during which a breach is found, BWF has prepared a number of resources to help you mitigate Health and Safety risk such as:

– A 12 point ‘Health and Safety: the essentials’ checklist to help prevent you getting caught out and advice on what HSE field inspectors are looking for in our Health and Safety publications.

– A 91 page Health and Safety Manual targeted specifically at Woodworking and Joinery companies.

– Our selection of woodworking machinery safety cards

– Health and Safety training – including machine refresher training, Health & Safety management qualifications and more.

– As a member you can also ring our Health and Safety helpline on 0844 209 2610.

Look out in early 2014 for our brand new 'BWF Health & Safety Hero' initiative to reduce accidents in the workshop.