Browsing: Dangerous substances | Page 8

Australia has taken a significant step towards the blanket ban of certain silica-containing workplace products, with the Australian Labor Party declaring the ban "necessary" under an amended WHS resolution.

A worker could be jailed for up to five years, after being charged with recklessly endangering a colleague who was killed by a toppling forklift load. Meanwhile, a safety regulator has issued a special warning to "pranksters", after five workers sustained burns in a gas explosion.

The resurgence of debilitating lung diseases in a major industry has come with a shift in disease type and severity, which researchers have attributed to modern work methods. They say their findings highlight the importance of controlling respirable dust.

The employer of a WHS risk manager, who was prosecuted for failing to finalise a risk assessment for an infectious disease, has successfully applied to enter a $950,000 undertaking to halt the proceedings against it, in relation to the same matter.

• SWA outlines work-from-home duties in new resources;
  
• Model WHS amendments for silica applied in SA; and
  
• Paid FDV leave extended to many workers.

• Safety officer's brother gets 20 months' jail;
  
• Breakthrough heat study should inform WHS practices, says Monash; and
  
• PTSD-presumption laws further amended in WA.

• Comcare WHS case studies reveal psychosocial failings;
  
• WHS regulations and protections covered by gold and lead probe; and
  
• ACTU re-demands stone bans after alarming US findings.

• Workplace health and safety officer jailed over cover-up; and
  
• Everything you need to know from April, May and June.

An employer has been cleared of WHS breaches relating to an incident where defective plant was left in service and caught fire, forcing workers to seek refuge and survive on stored air until they could be evacuated.

An employer charged with WHS breaches after a blast hurled rocks at workers inside an exclusion zone has escaped conviction, with a regulator failing to prove beyond reasonable doubt that appointing a supervisor with less than "optimal" experience was a breach of the employer's duty.