Browsing: Contractors | Page 8

Two companies, including one that failed to implement a mandatory rescue plan for excavation work, have been fined a total of $720,000, plus $35,000 in costs, in relation to the drowning of a worker in a trench.

A company that supplied a 200 kilogram door to a worksite did not owe a safety duty of care to a worker who sustained serious injuries trying to lift the door at the site, an appeals court has found in setting aside a ruling against the company.

Synergy Scaffolding Services Pty Ltd has been fined $2 million for reckless conduct that killed an 18-year-old worker, two days after his birthday, and endangered many others, at a NSW site.

In a case providing an important reminder of the extra risks faced by vulnerable workers, like those from overseas, a PCBU has been convicted and fined over the significant fall injuries sustained by the holder of a working holiday visa.

A PCBU has been fined $400,000 after a worker sustained fatal injuries falling from an unsuitable ladder, with a court slamming its site induction for being "so inadequate" that it failed to detect that the worker did not have a "white card".

The High Court has rejected an employer's bid for special leave to challenge a ruling that it is not entitled to recover, from its insurer, any damages and compensation paid to an injured worker because of its safety record.

A PCBU that failed to clarify its plant isolation responsibilities to all personnel has been found guilty of WHS breaches, after a subcontractor died in a tank and his two would-be rescuers were seriously injured.

A major employer charged over a serious mobile plant incident has escaped prosecution, under Commonwealth WHS laws, because a regulator's "delegation instrument" did not give the inspector who initiated the prosecution the power to do so.

• Fatality rate falls as serious injury rate and costs increase; and
  
• Upstream duty holder fined over unsafe installation.

A company that ignored its own safety systems for guarding penetrations has been handed a $600,000 pre-discount fine, after one of its managers died in a 19-metre fall through an unguarded ventilation shaft.