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Champion Petfoods facing charges over worker injury

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An Edmonton pet food company will go to trial in 2019 on occupational health and safety charges related to a worker sustaining a serious lower-leg injury.

Champion Petfoods and staffing agency Kelly Services charges related to a worker being struck from behind by a lift truck while on foot in a warehouse.

Champion recently made headlines when the Wall Street Journal reported that the company is negotiating a US$2 billion sale to Nestle.

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The article, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, said the global food and beverage giant is in talks to purchase a majority share of the specialty maker of dog and cat food, although the negotiations could break down before a deal is reached.

In a statement the company declined to comment on what it called “speculation in the market.”

Although the worker was injured in 2016, the charges weren’t laid until early 2018.

Champion and Kelly Services are each charged with three offences:

• Failure to ensure the health and safety of a worker engaged in the work of those employers.

• Failure to assess a work site and identify existing and potential hazards before work began at the work site or prior to the construction of a new work site.

• Failure to ensure that walkways were designated that separated pedestrian traffic for workers from areas where powered mobile equipment was operating or that safe work procedures were used to protect workers who entered areas where powered mobile equipment was operating.

Contractor MTE Logistix Management Inc also faces one count of failing to comply with occupational health and safety work site legislation.

A trial is scheduled for April 2019.

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