WORKSAFEBC slapped construction companies on the North Shore with just shy of $50,000 last year for violating work safety regulations.
Eight outfits - mostly roofing companies - were handed fines by the provincial regulatory agency ranging from a high of almost $17,000 to a low of $2,500 last year.
The total of the fines came in at about $49,500.
Topping the list was the company Perm Roof, handed a fine of $16,776 on Dec. 21 last year for what WorkSafeBC described as a "high-risk and repeated violation" of not using fall protection.
The annual WorkSafe report on safety violations said a supervisor and one of the company's young workers were working on a sloped roof of a two-storey house, about seven metres up without fall protection.
Most of the other companies fined by WorkSafe were nabbed for similar violations.
Select Roofing Ltd. was fined $6,764, ET Roofing and Renovation Ltd. was fined $5,000, Zipp Construction Ltd. was fined $4,123, Cypress Roofing Ltd. was fined $3,462 and Salvatore Mano was fined $2,606 - all for allowing workers to work on roofs of buildings under construction without proper fall protection harnesses. In two of the cases, workers were about nine metres (30 feet) above the ground. In the case of Select Roofing, a supervisor was also working without fall protection.
Apex Western Homes Ltd. was also dinged with a fine of $8,256 for allowing a subcontractor operating excavating equipment to damage a natural gas line under the worksite no fewer than three separate times. WorkSafe ruled the company failed to accurately determine where the utility lines were before excavating or drilling with power tools.
Baldev Singh and Harminder S. Lidhar were also fined $2,500 for failing to comply with orders issued by WorkSafeBC within a reasonable period of time.
