Browsing: Jurisdiction (VIC) | Page 7

A Victorian company that pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering an apprentice, while he was being supervised by the company director, has been fined $2.1 million - a penalty that is more than double the State's previous record safety fine for a single offence.

A company that was prosecuted, over a high-profile fatality, for breaching its safety duties as a supplier of plant, has unsuccessfully argued that its $400,000 penalty was excessive because it had no control over the location of workers when the incident occurred.

An appeals court has declined to create a "new category of duty" for employers, in overturning a psychologically injured worker's $1.4 million damages award for being subjected to a "sham" dismissal.

Workers' comp claims for "stress" and "burnout" are being axed in Victoria, with the State Government acting on its May 2023 plan to fix the "broken" compensation scheme by cutting benefits.

A leading legal expert on technology and the workplace has warned of the WHS risks and implications of using "bossware" to track workers' productivity, including that it can trigger cease-work orders under safety laws.

Australia has taken a big leap towards banning engineered stone products, with the country's WHS ministers agreeing to release a "powerful and compelling" Safe Work Australia report that recommends the ban, and warns there is no evidence that alternative measures can curb the alarming rate of silicosis in engineered stone workers.

Two related companies, and a director who s-xually harassed teenage employees, have been fined a total of $290,000 for workplace safety breaches, with their failings including the absence of a specific reporting process in their online bullying and harassment policy.

An employer has been reprimanded for failing to properly discipline a bully and allowing further "reprehensible" conduct to occur, but the victim has been refused stop-bullying orders, after the company made a number of changes to the workplace to make it safe for him to return to work.

• Employers fined over crane and public-road fatalities; and
  
• "World leading" workers' comp laws pass in Tas.

Court Services Victoria (CSV) has been convicted and ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in penalties, in relation to a toxic workplace culture that contributed to the suicide death of a lawyer and to other workers taking stress leave.