Goodman Fielder fined $90,000 for 2009 worker injury

A worker was left with serious and permanent injuries to his arm after a dough extruder activated while he was cleaning it, trapping his arm. The incident occurred at Goodman Fielder’s Pampas factory in 2009.

Goodman Fielder was fined $90,000 after pleading guilty to failing to provide proper training under Section 21 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004.

A WorkSafe investigation found that the worker was not adequately trained to operate the machine’s controls, which was why he failed to properly deactivate the machine before cleaning it. While informal training was carried out by other employees, they did not follow a safe and consistent approach.

The machine was also inadequately guarded, having a 10 cm gap in the plastic guard which was large enough for the worker to put his arm through.

According to WorkSafe’s General Manager for Health and Safety Operations Lisa Sturzenegger, the company’s conviction and fine could easily have been avoided.

“Properly guarding machines is a fundamental safety requirement that employers must act on to avoid incidents like this from happening,” Sturzenegger said. “Businesses have to make sure moving parts of a machine have proper guards or physical barriers fitted.”

“On top of this, workers responsible for cleaning or servicing machines need to be properly trained in how to deactivate them,” Sturzenegger said. “As this incident has shown, inadequately training staff can have distressing consequences for all involved.”