Publisher Fined $85,000 for Pinchpoint Incident

A worker at a newspaper publisher’s printing center was assigned to clean the rollers on one of the press units. He activated the ‘crawl mode,’ which rotates the rollers at five revolutions a minute, and then cleaned the bottom roller with a rag after removing the finger guard. The rag got caught in the rollers. It and the worker’s hand were pulled into the unguarded pinchpoint, resulting in hand injuries. The publisher pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that the rollers were stopped during cleaning and properly blocked to prevent movement. The court fined it $85,000 [Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd., Govt. News Release, Dec. 21, 2012].