Browsing: Issue/challenge/risk (all) | Page 590

An injured worker with a history of falling from office furniture, including while hanging Christmas decorations, has been denied compensation for permanent impairment.

• Serious safety incidents increase in pre-Christmas period;
  
• MP Scott handed VWA portfolio; and
  
• Regulators issue head-injury warning and gas guidance.

Too few workplace health and safety professionals are trained in how to design and introduce prevention programs to tackle health risks, international researchers have found.

Employers are being urged to assess whether their work processes are encouraging employees to break safety rules, after a Safe Work Australia report found a link between risk taking and high fatality and injury rates.

• Police to target more mines in anti-drug operation;
  
• WorkCover reforms slash paperwork by 50%, says NSW report; and
  
• Time running out to register for OHS Alert subscriber webinar.

An employer and six employees accused of bullying - in a worker's application for stop-bullying orders - have failed in their bid to have their names suppressed.

Employers can take numerous steps to ensure their workers are safe and act appropriately at end-of-year celebrations, and are being reminded of cases that show the consequences of failing to do so.

The NSW Supreme Court has clarified the extent of safety inspectors' entry powers under the State WHS Act, in rejecting an employer's claim that an inspector who entered its workplace after a fatality couldn't interview witnesses before seeking any required information in writing.

National Mental Health Commission chair Professor Allan Fels has called for employers to prioritise reducing the "huge impact" of mental ill health on productivity, and released a major report outlining six strategies for creating mentally healthy workplaces.

A major employer that topped the "scale of unfairness" in sacking a stressed worker won't have to pay him workers' compensation, after a tribunal found his condition fell within the boundaries of normal mental functioning.