An engineer who was required to attend a work-related dinner - where alcoholic drinks were served - and failed a urine test the following morning was rightly dismissed, Fair Work Australia has ruled.
A Queensland employer should have assessed the risk of lifting a five kilogram canister, even though it was just one of the thousands of pieces of small equipment regularly handled by its staff, the Court of Appeal has ruled in awarding an injured worker $640,000 in damages.
In this update, OHS Alert outlines all the important OHS and workers' compensation legislative changes made in the first quarter of 2011. We also recap the most significant court and tribunal rulings and other developments in each jurisdiction.
NSW employer Dairy Farmers did everything in its power to ensure staff understood its code of conduct and email policy, Fair Work Australia has ruled, in finding seven employees were rightly sacked for distributing inappropriate emails.
Stressed worker wins payout after "horseplay" deemed harassment; Study finds safety gaps in sustainability reports; and Fatality alerts and other safety publications released.
A Victorian employer could have eliminated a host of "self-evident" manual handling risks through the introduction of cheap and convenient alternative processes, the Supreme Court has found in awarding an injured worker nearly $1.4 million in damages.
