Browsing: Labour hire workers | Page 2

• WHS changes commence in Commonwealth jurisdiction;
  
• Two companies fined over labour-hire safety incident; and
  
• Violence reports increasing in mining workplaces.

The High Court has confirmed Qantas Airways Ltd took unlawful adverse action against 1,700 ground crew workers when it outsourced their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The union that brought the case applauded the judgment, and highlighted a string of workplace safety issues that it claims arose from the outsourcing arrangement.

A PCBU with "significant" WHS systems has been fined $525,000 over a fatality, involving its failure to implement a specific documented system of work for a task a worker was performing when he was killed.

A court has ordered two companies to pay more than $1.6 million in damages to a labour-hire worker, who was injured performing a "mundane" task that was unsafe because it "included a tripping hazard as an integral part of its operation".

• Employers must destroy certain COVID vaccine records in Vic;
  
• Untrained workers handed chemical job, employer fined; and
  
• Crane supplier charged with safety offences.

A worker has failed to prove on appeal that his employer was vicariously liable for another worker's actions in pointing a gun at his head, which caused his post-traumatic stress disorder.

An "administrative" worker who was required to undertake repetitive bending work for a "long duration" - without adequate rest breaks or appropriate equipment - has been awarded more than $1.3 million in damages, after a court found her host employer negligently caused her lower back pain and secondary psychological injury.

• EU commitment tops $932k after labour-hire worker struck; and
  
• WHS benefits of new hybrid vehicle highlighted.

A company has failed to overturn a $2 million-plus damages ruling examining the "transfer of employment". It unsuccessfully contended it was not vicariously liable for a labour-hire worker's negligence that caused a crush injury to a fellow employee.

A labour-hire company "induced or encouraged" a fly-in-fly-out worker to play the soccer game between shifts that injured him, a judge has confirmed, rejecting the company's claim that any inducement came from a third party and removed its liability.