Mining union urges better safety after Agrium hit with $390K fine

A prominent Saskatchewan mining union is calling for more safety precautions and stricter enforcement after Agrium Inc. was hit with a $490,000 fine — the biggest ever handed out in the province — in connection with an accident two years ago.

The fine — $350,000 plus a $140,000 victim surcharge — is not a lot of money to a multibilliondollar company such as Agrium, and employers across the industry need to be held accountable, said United Steelworkers staff representative Darrin Kruger.

“We need to re-examine how we handle these things. Why is it that somebody who dies at work is less important than someone who dies on a highway or somebody who dies in a hospital? … Nobody gets up to go to work to die,” Kruger said Thursday in an interview.

Agrium was fined this week after pleading guilty to a single count of failing to provide a safe work environment in connection with an underground accident that left Derick Perschke with severe abdominal injuries, as well as memory loss and anger issues.

“I think it was a just result, and that it will serve the primary purpose of deterrence,” prosecutor Buffy Rodgers said of the decision.

WORKER DIED

The accident — which an agreed statement of facts indicates was caused by an improperly secured pulley under tension — happened at the company’s Vanscoy potash mine two weeks after 29-year-old Chad Wiklun died following a separate underground accident.

The company, which is now part of Nutrien Ltd., has on two previous occasions been hit with major fines in connection with accidents at the site.

Court documents state it also received 27 notices of contravention on various matters between 2005 and 2013.

“Since the fall of 2016 (after the accidents), Agrium has undertaken significant and wide-sweeping measures to address safety concerns and eliminate health and safety risks in the company,” according to the agreed statement of facts.

Kruger, who was president of the Vanscoy miners’ union when Wiklun and Perschke were injured at work, said Agrium is a good employer but the fact that no workplace safety charges are expected in connection with Wiklun’s death suggests more needs to be done.

“This is not anti-employer or anti-business … This is about maintaining safe workplaces and protecting workers.”

ACCOUNTABILITY

The provincial government maintains that it supports employers when it comes to making workplaces safe and that it holds companies accountable when they fail to do so, both by increasing fines four years ago and prosecuting more offences.

“As more workplace incidents are being prosecuted under the new legislation, fines ordered by the courts are moving upwards, providing greater incentive to create a positive safety culture,” Ray Anthony, the government’s executive director of occupational health and safety, said in a statement.

According to government data, there were 37 workplace safety convictions last year with fines totalling $1.4 million, up from 25 convictions and $870,996 in fines the year before. Convictions peaked at 85 in 2013-14, which led to fines totalling $647,200.

To date this year there have been 12 convictions with fines totalling $927,000, according to the data.

Nutrien spokesman Will Tigley said the company has improved its safety processes and will continue to do so. He referred Postmedia to an earlier statement, which mentioned reviews, ongoing training and “reinforcing ” safety priorities with employees.