Candy maker fined for unguarded machine

An Osborne Park manufacturer of rock candy was fined $20,000 for failing to provide a safe workplace after a worker’s finger was severely injured in an unguarded machine.

Baralda, trading as Perth Candy Company, pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace and causing serious harm to an employee.

In June 2005, an employee of Perth Candy Company was cutting candy with a humbug cutting machine consisting of guide rollers and a set of horizontal and vertical blades which chopped the candy rope into a humbug shape.

The candy jammed in the guide rollers and the employee reached with his left hand to unclog the spinning wheels of the guide roller. His right hand accidentally touched the unguarded horizontal and vertical blades and was pulled into them. The machine continued to crush and chop his fingers as it would the candy.

His right middle finger was severely injured and his right ring finger was severely lacerated. The middle finger was initially repaired, but it proved unsuccessful and the finger was later amputated at the middle knuckle.

WorkSafe WA Commissioner Nina Lyhne today expressed her disappointment that the message on machinery guarding still did not appear to be getting through to employers.

“Occupational safety and health legislation has required the guarding of moving parts of machinery for a very long time now, and we should not have to remind employers of their obligations in this area,” Lyhne said.

“Guarding is one of the easiest and most obvious means of minimising the risk of injury to machinery operators, and the cost of installing guarding is far less than the cost in human and economic terms of a serious injury to a worker.

“In this particular case, a worker has suffered a serious and permanent injury in an incident that could have been prevented with the installation of a guard over the moving blades.”