Health and Safety: Fitness Club and Manager are Fined for No Health and Safety Program

A fitness club was fined $50,000 and the general manager was personally fined $25,000 in violations to health and safety regulations. Health and safety inspectors issued dozens of orders for such items as: personal protective equipment, hazardous chemical labeling, and a requirement to have a health and safety program in place. The club failed to comply and the health and safety inspector issued stop work orders. When the club continued to disregard the orders, the health and safety inspector laid charges.

The court found the club guilty of not having a working health and safety plan with numerous charges and found the general manager guilty of obstruction with not complying with work orders issued.

Setting a health and safety program, besides being required by law, in place will reduce costs. Having this program in place will reduce accidents and will lead to lower company worker’s insurance premiums. The average claim for an injured worker is $68,000 that is billed to the company.

A working program will:
1) Improve employee morale-shows care in their well being
2) Reduce revenue loses-fewer accidents keeps employees working and reduces insurance premiums and also can lead to rebates on insurance
3) Give a boost to the customer-having fewer accidents means all employees are available for work

Writing a health and safety program is a huge and frustrating task. Where to start? ABB Safety Net can help. ABB Safety Net will issue a written plan with your company’s name for your company. Secondly ABB Safety Net will provide a self hazard assessment for your company (nobody knows your company better than you). Further ABB Safety Net will research requirements for your region to make your program complies with legal requirements such as: “do you need a formal committee?”, “need first aid training?”, “what needs to be posted?”, or even being “certified?”

Now, the written plan is ready what’s next? You must live and maintain the plan. Documentation is everything for your and your employee’s protection. ABB Safety Net will provide an employee’s safety manual and a form to sign. ABB Safety Net will also provide simple forms for daily start-ups, monthly walk-throughs, quarterly meetings, and annual meetings. To aid in maintenance for your health and safety plan, ABB Safety Net will e-mail these forms as a reminder of the occurrences when they are due. ABB Safety Net will even e-mail a random fire drill to test for fire safety.

What happens when an accident does occur? With a working plan in place you will have all needed forms and you will have all documentation in place. You will even have an investigation procedure in place to aid in preventing the accident from occurring again. In case an accident does occur, an investigation would have taken place by you and not by the safety inspector. You would have come to the conclusion first and would have the report ready before the safety inspector stopped by.

Give ABB Safety Net a call at (416)276-0017 or drop us an e-mail at ABBSafetyNet@gmail.com for help in your health and safety plan and maintenance today.