New Zealand meatworks fined $280,000 for workplace safety violations

A Hawke’s Bay meat processing company has been fined for safety failures after a young man suffered a serious hand injury in a workplace incident.

WorkSafe said the man, who was just weeks into the job, sustained a partial amputation of three fingers and the thumb after being struck by brisket cutter blades in October 2020.

“The man was at the very start of his working life when this awful injury was inflicted. It’s unfair for him to have been robbed of the full function of his hand,” says WorkSafe’s area investigation manager, Paul Budd.

The company was recently sentenced at the Hastings District Court and was fined $280,000 and ordered to pay $48,000 to the man following the incident.

Read the full story here.