Surprisingly high percentages of workers are exposed to aggression from colleagues, managers and customers, while workplace racism also remains common, creating significant WHS risks and highlighting the need for targeted training, according to safety, wellbeing and human resources specialists.
A major employer has failed to overturn a ruling that a worker, who was previously awarded $200,000 after being featured on a s-xually suggestive WHS poster, is entitled to pursue further damages under unfair dismissal laws.
An employer and its director have been found vicariously liable for the s-xual harassment and assault of a worker. The director had "flicked through" the employer's anti-harassment guidance, but did little else to address the issue, a tribunal found.
A new consultation paper examining six legislative reforms, proposed by Kate Jenkins, has included an important reminder to employers of their WHS duty to prevent and address "intimidating, hostile, humiliating or offensive" work environments.
Rio Tinto has committed to applying its operational safety and risk processes to its camps and village facilities, and urgently auditing and remedying any unsafe facilities, in response to the damning report on its workplace culture of bullying, harassment and racism.
PCBUs have a positive WHS duty to prevent workplace s-xual harassment and victims have multiple avenues for recourse, including anti-discrimination agencies, WHS regulators and the police, Safe Work Australia has reminded stakeholders on the release of two new infographics on the issue.
In the latest development in the notorious Sydney Water Corporation WHS poster case, the Fair Work Commission has found the employer's "inept" management of the worker while she was ill, and its "marked indifference" to the serious poster incident, forced the worker to resign.