Employers can prevent the "drift" into complacency and safety failures, which often follows a period of success, by applying the principles of "high reliability organisational theory" and seeking out "near-miss signals", according to one of three major reports on fatalities and safety laws in Queensland. It also recommends an alternative metric to the notoriously misleading LTIFR.
An engineering company and its director breached WHS laws in failing to create a computer model to predict the risk of an unplanned structural collapse, exposing at least two workers to the risk of death or serious injury, a court has ruled.
A PCBU engaged to design, supply and install a fall prevention system has been fined heavily over a six-metre fall, taking the total WHS penalties for the incident to $525,000.
WHS regulators are increasingly turning to infringement notices to tackle safety breaches, while the number of prosecutions has surged in one jurisdiction following a controversial lull, according to one of four new comparison reports from Safe Work Australia. The agency has also outlined PCBUs' duties involving air pollution.
The upcoming commencement of workplace manslaughter legislation coincides with a period of unprecedented regulatory activity and record-high inspection numbers, Victorian duty holders have been warned. Meanwhile, an employer has been charged with illegally stockpiling chemicals, and safety regulators have issued coronavirus and fatality alerts.
A national employer charged with workplace safety breaches, involving non-compliant windows in its premises, has spent $1.4 million on remedial works and entered an undertaking to escape prosecution, after a child was injured.
Employers should consider updating their fitness for work and leave policies, adding provisions for "quarantining" workers, and reviewing workplace hygiene protocols, in response to the coronavirus outbreak, Ashurst partner Trent Sebbens says in this Q&A with OHS Alert.
Residual current devices (RCDs) should be installed in all workplaces, regardless of the construction date, while defibrillators need to be more widely available, particularly at remote sites, an inquest into an electrocution has found.
