Union wants manufacturer charged in death of 23-year-old worker

Seven months after worker was crushed to death, union still waiting for results of police and WCB investigations

A Quebec union has called on the province's attorney general to lay criminal charges against a company for the death of a young worker in 2005.

The Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) is pressing the government to take advantage of a law that has been on the books for the past two years that makes employers legally responsible for employee deaths.

Steve L'Ecuyer, a 23-year-old worker at concrete products manufacturer Transpavé in Saint-Eustache, Que., died on the job last October soon after joining the company.

FTQ president Henri Massé said they have been waiting in vain for seven months for the local police report, the findings of the workers' compensation board (WCB) investigation and for the attorney general to decide whether or not to lay charges against Transpavé.

Massé told a press conference last week that each of the regulatory bodies is waiting on the other, afraid to make a decision for fear of setting a precedent. Serge Bérubé, the president of the Teamsters Quebec union local 1999, joined Massé in asking that the company be charged in L'Ecuyer's death.

L'Ecuyer was crushed by a concrete press, which the WCB had previously instructed the company to repair, after pallets with concrete had backed-up on the conveyer belt. The company's own security cameras captured the entire incident on tape, which was turned over to the local police.

One of the WCB investigators since discovered that the motion sensor that would stop the press if someone were to move past it was turned off at the time of the accident. The on/off switch for the safety device was kept in a locked cabinet, for which the employer was responsible, said the union.

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