Browsing: Duty holders | Page 88

A PCBU has been charged with the industrial manslaughter of a worker in a powerlines incident, and could be fined up to $11.5 million, in the first case of its kind under electrical safety laws.

A workplace fatality, which led to a $250,000 WHS fine, occurred in circumstances where the contrast between the instructions provided to workers with limited English and what supervisors allowed to occur gave rise "to an understandable level of confusion about what was, and was not, permitted", an inquest has found.

A company and its clinical director have been fined a total of nearly $730,000 for failing to develop comprehensive safety plans for clients, and other breaches, after a client with multiple sclerosis lost consciousness and later died.

• WHS manslaughter Bill passes, provides more enforcement "avenues"; and
  
• COVID vaccine mandate lacked WHS consultation: union.

An 82-year-old company director has been convicted and fined $125,000 over the death of his friend, with a judge rejecting claims that his age reduced the seriousness of his offence, and saying a "strong message needs to be sent to company directors whose companies place employees and others in highly dangerous situations".

• Inexpensive part could have prevented injuries and prosecution; and
  
• Dozens of high-risk work licensees require re-assessment.

An injured worker has been awarded about $635,000 in damages, after a court found his employer's failure to identify his tasks as hazardous manual handling, in breach of safety regulations, caused his disabling musculoskeletal injury.

• How employers can control methamphetamine-use risks; and
  
• Reducing COVID risks through better workplace ventilation.

An employer has been found guilty of workplace health and safety breaches, relating to an elderly man's fall into a ditch, after a judge rejected its claim that the control it was accused of failing to implement would interfere with the human and statutory rights of its care facility residents.

A study of workplace injury rates spanning a decade has found the main causes of robotic incidents are critically overlooked in risk assessments focusing on "visible and tangible" physical hazards.