Company fined after migrant worker injured in shredder

Companies are being reminded of their duty to protect their workforce, especially workers from other countries, after a migrant worker employed at a pet bedding company suffered serious injuries in a shredder.

Snowflake Animal Bedding Ltd, which is based in Ashton-under-Lyne, but has a manufacturing plant in Boston, Lincolnshire, was fined £13,300 and ordered to pay full costs of £8,655.16p at Boston Magistrates’ Court today, Monday 22 June, after pleading guilty to breaching section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The company was also fined £3,400 after admitting breaching Regulation 9 (1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 for failing to ensure employees had adequate training for driving fork lift trucks.

On 23 January 2007, an employee – a migrant worker from Poland who had been in the country for just over six months at the time of the incident - was working at the company’s manufacturing plant at Marsh Lane on the Riverside Industrial Estate in Boston.

He was standing on a conveyor belt which fed hay bales into the shredder, cutting strings that were holding bales together. As the bale fell apart, the man lost his balance and fell into the shredder.
During the HSE’s investigation, it also came to light that the company was not giving staff adequate forklift truck driver training.

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