Toronto commercial bakery fined $300,000 in workplace death
Posted September 14, 2017 4:19 pm.
Last Updated September 14, 2017 4:36 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A Toronto commercial bakery has been fined $300,000 following the death of a temporary worker last year.
The Ontario Ministry of Labour says on Sept. 2, 2016, Amina Diaby was working at the Fiera Foods plant on Marmora Street when her hijab became entangled under a guard covering the chain drive of a conveyor belt. Diaby was found without vital signs and was pronounced dead at hospital.
Diaby had been hired to work at the plant through a temporary staffing agency and had been on the job for only two weeks.
An investigation by the Ministry of Labour determined that Fiera Foods had failed to ensure that a worker near a source of entanglement secured all loose clothing. It also noted that an emergency stop button was not accessible from the location of the entanglement.
Fiera Foods pleaded guilty and was fined $300,000. They will also pay a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act.
This is not the first time Fiera Foods has been found guilty of a workplace death.
Back in 2002, the bakery was fined $150,000 following in the death of a 17-year-old temporary worker.
In 2011, the Ministry of Labour was also called in to investigate a fatal death at the same facility when a 69-year-old man was struck by a car and later dragged by a tractor-trailer in the parking lot.
