HAMILTON, Ontario — Railcar manufacturer National Steel Car has been fined C$140,000 in a case involving the death of a crane operator in 2020, Global News reports.
A worker later identified by the United Steelworkers Local 7135 as 51-year-old Fraser Cowan was killed in a Sept. 2, 2020, incident in which an object fell on the operator of a 20-ton crane. The company entered a guilty plea to a provincial health and safety charge, admitting crane controls were not a safe distance from the load being lifted. Two related offenses were withdrawn during a court hearing.
It is one of three deaths at the company’s Hamilton plant in less than two years. Investigations into a 2021 death of painter Collin Grayley, and this year’s death of 51-year-old welder Quoc Le, are ongoing [see “Workers protest after employee death …,” Trains News Wire, June 10, 2022].
