Browsing: Labour hire workers | Page 4

A PCBU fined $170,000 for endangering "other persons", by allowing an unqualified labour-hire worker to perform high-risk cranage work, has lost its appeal against its conviction, with a bench rejecting is claim the task was outside the scope of its undertaking.

A union has applied for a WHS prosecutor to launch proceedings against a labour-hire company that experienced two fatalities within seven months, and which was found to be committed to safety but struggling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trade unions have been reminded of their traditional role of seeking to enhance WHS laws, perceived as insufficient, through political and parliamentary processes, with a judge handing record workplace coercion fines to a union and three officials.

A company's managing director regularly attended the workplace where a full-arm amputation occurred and had the requisite level of control to implement safety improvements at the site, a court has found in fining the man $70,000.

Lack of action by an employer to introduce changes to work methods following a vehicle rollaway incident resulted in catastrophic injuries to one of its workers, who has been awarded nearly $1.6 million in damages.

A PCBU's $504,000 enforceable undertaking has provided valuable insight into the wide range of workplace issues that attract the attention of WHS inspectors, including where staff smoke their cigarettes.

A superior court has awarded $1.35 million in damages to an injured labour-hire worker, after finding the head scaffolding contractor at the site where the injury occurred was negligent in failing to provide an exclusion zone or establish a safe system of work.

A judge has revealed her reasons for imposing a high-level penalty on an employer when she re-sentenced it after quashing its gross negligence conviction. She rejected the company's claim it had believed certain labour-hire workers provided to its site were well trained and fully inducted in safety issues.

An employer that overturned its gross negligence conviction, relating to a labour-hire worker's full-arm amputation in an unguarded pinch point of a machine, has been fined $230,000 under amended charges.

• New safety consultation and labour-hire laws commence in Vic;
  
• Consolidated electricity safety laws introduced in Tas; and
  
• Workers' comp changes proposed by Tas.