Incident

On 10 April 2024, a PSL worker sustained fatal head injuries after falling approximately one metre from a steel beam while attempting to rotate it using a turning bar.

Alleged contravention

Being a PCBU having a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU while the workers are at work in the business or undertaking, namely, turning lengths of steel during steel fabrication operations, did fail to comply with that duty, and that failure exposed the workers to a risk of serious injury or death.

Summary highlights of the enforceable undertaking

• Financial amends to the victim’s family.
• Safety and competency improvements for workers, including HSR and leadership training, a competency‑based training and assessment programme, and investment in mechanical steel manipulators and additional cranage.
• Industry knowledge sharing, including a Safeguard Magazine article and a Steel Construction New Zealand (SCNZ) safety alert.
• Multilingual steel‑handling safety guidance, developed in Filipino, Telugu, and Mandarin, and distributed via the NZ Safety Council and SiteSafe.
• HASANZ scholarships to build specialist health and safety capabilities across the sector.
• Donations to the Bay of Plenty Coastguard and Raglan Coastguard.

Reasons for accepting the undertaking

This enforceable undertaking was assessed under WorkSafe’s Enforceable Undertakings Operational Policy (September 2019)¹ and meets all its requirements, considering:

• The activities in the enforceable undertaking and how they promote progressively higher standards of work health and safety.
• The nature of the alleged contravention and how serious it was.
• Information received from any interested party in relation to the contravention.
• Mitigation and remedial action, already taken or planned, regarding both the contravention and any person affected by the contravention (including victims).
• The business's past performance and compliance history with health and safety legislation.
• Any likely outcome if the matter were dealt with by legal proceedings.
  • A charge was filed in relation to this incident on the basis that there was both evidential sufficiency and a public interest in initiating prosecution.
  • The undertaking accounts for the benefits that accrue to PSL by a prosecution not proceeding.
• Any other matter which WorkSafe thinks is relevant.
  • The undertaking delivers benefits beyond compliance.
  • The undertaking supports WorkSafe’s strategic objectives.
  • The undertaking contains acceptable terms.

Date accepted

13 March 2026

Further information

View the Pact Steel Limited enforceable undertaking: