July 19, 2012

Metron swing-stage fine an opportunity lost: Dillon

KELLY LAPOINTE

staff writer

The $200,000 fine against Metron Construction in relation to the Christmas Eve 2009 swing-stage tragedy has left one construction industry leader “numb.”

“We need a revolutionary shift in our thinking and I think that was an opportunity to at least have moved the yard sticks a little bit and that just didn’t happen. As a matter of fact, I think it regressed, not progressed,” said Pat Dillon, business manager for the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario.

“The opportunity I believe is lost … corporations can just relax.”

Metron supervisor Fayzullo Fazilov, along with Vladimir Korostin, Aleksey Blumberg and Alexander Bondorev, died after they fell 13 storeys when their swing-stage broke apart on Dec. 24, 2009.

They were working on a highrise apartment building at 2757 Kipling Ave. in Toronto.

A fifth worker, welder Dilshod Marupov, survived the fall, but suffered severe leg and spinal injuries.

In addition to the fine Metron, a Toronto constructor, was convicted of criminal negligence causing death, the first conviction of its kind in Ontario under the Criminal Code.

“Not only charged with criminal negligence, pleaded guilty. It isn’t just a matter that there was some accusation, there was an admittance of criminal negligence,” pointed out Dillon.

“It certainly doesn’t look like justice was served. I’m lost for words as to how to try to explain what might have taken place.”

Metron director Joel Swartz was fined $90,000 after pleading guilty to violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). Criminal charges against Swartz were dropped. He pleaded guilty to failing as a director to take all reasonable care to ensure that:

— workers did not use a defective or hazardous swing-stage;

— the swing-stage was not loaded in excess of the weight it was meant to bear;

— workers were adequately trained in the use of fall protection by a competent person; and that Metron Construction Corporation prepared and maintained written training and instruction records for each worker.

Swartz and Metron were convicted under: Ontario Regulation 213/91, Section 26.2(1); Ontario Regulation 213/91, Section 26.2(3); Ontario Regulation 213/91, Section 93(2)(a); and Ontario Regulation 213/91, Section 134(3).

The company had faced a fine of up to $1 million.

After the ruling, Ontario Justice Robert Bigelow said the fine should send a message to companies that the court does not take workplace safety lightly.

The company will have to pay $100,000 within 30 days and the remainder within 12 months.

The company and Swartz were also ordered to pay a victim surcharge totalling $52,500 — bringing the total fines to $342,500.

“Health and safety legislation exists to protect workers from serious injury or death in the workplace and the overriding principle to be considered by the court is that of deterrence and any fine imposed must be substantial enough to warn others that the offence will not be tolerated,” said Bigelow.

Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) president Sid Ryan is calling on the Crown to appeal the fine.

“Today’s (July 13) ruling is disgraceful. It says that a worker’s life is worth no more than $50,000 and many bad bosses across the province will simply chalk it up as the cost of doing business,” he said in a release.

Dillon found it troubling that there was no reference made to Bill C-45, which criminalizes occupational health and safety matters.

“That is just a clear message that that legislation is of no use. I think that is pretty sad. I don’t know what it takes.”

The Ontario government is expected to announce a prevention council to work with Ontario’s Chief Prevention Officer, which was one of the recommendations made in the Tony Dean report. Dillon is looking toward this council for helping moving forward in occupational health and safety.

“It’s the only hope that we have. It’s obvious that it’s not going to happen in the legal system or in the bureaucracy,” he said, pointing out that the council has been expected for some time.

“It’s starting to look like the government doesn’t have any interest in prevention when it’s taken this long to put a prevention council together.”

Other defendants facing charges stemming from this incident are still before the court.

WITH FILES FROM THE CANADIAN PRESS

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