An employer has committed $113,000 to raising awareness of a contagious disease, after its vaccination system failed and four workers were exposed to and contracted the illness. Meanwhile, another employer has introduced a cutting-edge forklift management system under a $225,000 enforceable undertaking.
Toll Transport Pty Ltd has been handed one of the highest safety fines in Australian history, and the highest for a single OHS offence in Victoria, after a stevedore was run over and killed in the absence of a spotter.
Fines for failing to comply with OHS record-keeping obligations could be increased, under legislative amendments flagged in the Victorian Government's response to the Fiskville inquiry.
An employer's OHS fine has been increased more than seven-fold, on appeal, after a court found its failure to ensure workers adhered to a traffic management plan could have killed a truck driver.
A company has been fined for failing to ensure employees could competently assess load weights for mobile plant, after a young worker's leg was amputated, while a business operator has been handed a suspended prison sentence for fraudulently obtaining workers' comp reimbursements on behalf of employers.
Employers should ban the taking of photographs - for use on social media - at end-of-year work functions to mitigate the risk of bullying complaints, a WHS lawyer says. Meanwhile, a regulator has urged employers to carefully plan tasks during the notoriously hazardous pre-Christmas rush.
