Browsing: Contractors | Page 6

WHS fines relating to a confined-space fatality have surpassed $1 million, after the sentencing of a PCBU over failures to enforce coherent plant isolation procedures and causing the death of a worker, as well as serious injuries to two others attempting to rescue him.

A commission full bench has affirmed an earlier ruling revoking a WHS regulator's improvement notice issued to a site's principal contractor after a fatal fall.

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A local council that failed to conduct the proper checks before authorising a company, with a dismal safety record, to operate an amusement device at a festival, has been penalised for consultation contraventions relating to an incident where 12 people, mainly children, fell from heights of up to 12 metres.

A senior judge has described the ongoing spate of injuries and deaths in the roofing industry as "carnage", adding that the vast majority of incidents could have been avoided by using simple "well-known and effective safety precepts".

A PCBU that unsuccessfully battled against its "prolix" WHS charges been fined $425,000, in relation to an incident where a confined-space worker fell into perlite powder and died from suffocation.

A labour-hire company "induced or encouraged" a fly-in-fly-out worker to play the soccer game between shifts that injured him, a judge has confirmed, rejecting the company's claim that any inducement came from a third party and removed its liability.

A union and two of its officials have failed to overturn a ruling that they unlawfully obstructed work on a major project. They claimed the finding was erroneous because their conduct involved ensuring a PCBU was complying with its WHS duties.

The mother of a young worker impaled on a steel rod has been awarded more than $200,000 for post-traumatic stress linked to the incident, while her son has been awarded $520,000, and two negligent companies have been ordered to foot most of the bill.

A business owner who allegedly recklessly disregarded safety complaints at a work site could be jailed for decades, after being charged with the industrial manslaughter of a worker in a fall. Meanwhile, a regulator has released a workplace fatality toll including deaths from disease and suicide.