Company, COO fined for fatal fall of worker at warehouse

A company and its chief operating officer (COO) have been held accountable for a workplace incident three years ago, in which a Singaporean worker with nearly 40 years of experience at the firm fell to his death.

Automotive and industrial product distributor YHI Corporation was fined $200,000 on Aug 22, while COO Ong Chin Kiong was fined $150,000 over the death of Mr Tay Hock Soon, a warehouse operations executive.

They pleaded guilty to one offence each under the Workplace Safety and Health Act (WSHA).

Court documents did not state Mr Tay’s age, but said he had been employed by YHI Corporation, a subsidiary of listed company YHI International, since June 1982.

The fatal accident happened on July 3, 2021, at a two-storey warehouse on the company’s premises at 2 Pandan Road, near West Coast.

The warehouse was used to store automotive tyres and rims, among other products. There were 32 rows of storage racks on its ground level, each with eight tiers.

At around 11am that day, Mr Tay instructed machine operator Goh Boon Yoke to help him install horizontal metal beams at one of the storage racks.

Goh operated a very narrow aisle, or VNA, machine, which could raise both himself – in the machine cabin – and Mr Tay, who was standing on a wooden pallet attached to the machine’s fork.

When both of them were lifted to a certain height, Mr Tay stepped on the existing metal beams of the rack to install new beams on the tier above. Goh also got out of the machine cabin to help him.

The first two metal beams were installed without a hitch. But while they were about to install the third one that Mr Tay was holding, it hit a wooden pallet on the tier above them.

The pallet was stacked with 30 tyres at the time, with each weighing about 7.1kg. The tyres were dislodged, and Mr Tay fell, along with the tyres, from a height of about 10m.

He was taken to hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries on the same day.

Ministry of Manpower (MOM) prosecutor Kimberly Boo told the court that the company’s employees were not trained or equipped to install metal beams on the storage racks.

Neither Mr Tay nor Goh wore a fall prevention harness or safety belt for working at height.

Additionally, the storage racks were designed to hold plastic pallets of certain dimensions.

But to increase storage capacity, the company added wooden pallets of smaller dimensions to the racks. One of these wooden pallets dislodged and fell on the day of the accident.

The company did not consult any storage rack professional to determine the suitability and stability of such pallets to prevent any accidental dislodgment, said Ms Boo.

The prosecutor added that the firm did not conduct any risk assessment or establish any safe work procedure for operating VNA machines, nor did it implement measures to control risks arising from the operation of such machines.

As the chief operating officer, Ong failed to ensure the rigour of safety checks and the adequacy of the safety systems in place.

The company and Ong were represented by defence counsels Alfred Lim, Jaime Lye and Sean Choong of Meritus Law, who said this was the first time the company is facing WSHA charges in its 73 years of operation.

In their mitigation plea, the lawyers noted that the firm and Ong arranged for independent safety audits every three years to evaluate the safety of the storage racks, among other work processes. A 2015 audit found that these processes were safe.

Neither Mr Tay nor Goh sought the approval of the company or Ong before installing the metal beams, added the lawyers.

Goh, who had undergone training on how to operate the VNA machine, would have known that no one is allowed to stand on the fork of the machine. There were also clear warning signs on the machine stating that there should be no passengers on the fork.

The team wrote in their mitigation plea: “However, for reasons not known to YHI and/or Ong, Goh and the deceased chose to ignore (the warning signs).”

Goh, 60, has been charged with one offence under the WSHA for doing a reckless act which endangered his own safety and that of others. He intends to plead guilty in September.

The lawyers added that after the accident, their clients cooperated with MOM to improve workplace safety and health performance.