Browsing: Fatalities | Page 14

An employer fined $400,000 over the death of a lone worker has lost its appeal against its conviction and sentence, with a court affirming it was open to a jury to conclude the company should have implemented a two-person rule for a dangerous task.

A worker was distracted by the death of a colleague, and fatigued from 26 consecutive days of work, when he was "cleared" as "fit" by an unqualified counsellor to perform a dangerous loading task, and then killed in an exclusion zone, a coronial inquest has found.

An employer has been fined $350,000 after a jury found it guilty of offences relating to a fatal instruction to work in the dark. Meanwhile, a utility company has been fined over a degloving incident, and two organisations have been charged after a child drowned.

WHS fines relating to a confined-space fatality have surpassed $1 million, after the sentencing of a PCBU over failures to enforce coherent plant isolation procedures and causing the death of a worker, as well as serious injuries to two others attempting to rescue him.

A company has been charged with workplace manslaughter, attracting a maximum fine of more than $18 million, for allegedly engaging in negligent conduct that caused the death of a worker performing a task unrelated to its daily operations.

A superior court has quashed a decision acquitting a worker of recklessly contributing to a fatal crushing, ruling that the requisite test for a guilty verdict was whether the worker foresaw it was possible, rather than probable, that a death would occur.

For International Workers' Memorial Day today, unions have called for the Apple Isle to commit to introducing the offence of industrial manslaughter, noting all other Australian jurisdictions have made such a commitment, and highlighting the deterrent effect of tough safety laws.

Constant long working hours, changes in the content and quantity of work, and harassment, are all contributing to "death from overwork", an alarming study has found.

An employer breached it legislative safety duties, in the lead up to the death of a manager, by failing to instruct a supplier to pack containers in a manner that allowed them to be emptied safely, a court has ruled. Meanwhile, Australian companies have been urged to take a more ethical approach to their supply chains, on the 10th anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster.

Poor adherence to safety regulations and exposure to diesel emissions - even at levels below recommended thresholds - have been linked, by two studies, to an increased risk of injuries and biological changes that can lead to cancer.