Browsing: Right of entry | Page 8

A full Federal Court has finalised the first personal payment order against a union official fined for Fair Work breaches, paving the way for a regulator to seek similar orders in more than a dozen other cases, including one where an official abused a safety inspector.

A union and officials who attempted to "leverage safety" for industrial objectives have been fined nearly $140,000, while a company and its director have been fined $111,000 for their actions against WHS permit holders, inspectors and police.

WHS consultants, lawyers and occupational hygienists will have an explicit duty to ensure their services don't create health and safety risks at client sites, if recommendations on the development of a harmonised WHS Bill are adopted in Western Australia.

• Company, owner fined $211k in racial-discrimination first;
  
• WHS changes slashing annual compliance costs: reports; and
  
• ABCC clarifies status of CFMMEU entry permits.

• Electrical safety amendments commence in WA today;
  
• New WHS fines and asbestos-training rules introduced in ACT; and
  
• NT WorkSafe clarifies status of CFMMEU entry permits.

A company director is likely to be fined about $20,000 for her "appalling" WHS right-of-entry breaches, with a full Federal Court quashing a finding that the case against her failed because union officials neglected to write their middle names on the relevant entry notice.

A regulator has welcomed the High Court's ruling that judges have the power to order unions not to indemnify officials against pecuniary penalties imposed under the Commonwealth Fair Work Act, saying it could stop unions from treating penalties "as a cost of doing business".

A full Federal Court has found, on appeal, that an entry permit holder breached his duty to "not hinder or obstruct" any person when he swore "liberally" during a WorkSafe inspection and called the inspector "pathetic".

A union's failure to follow up on supposedly urgent safety concerns, after a major company agreed to pay workers a site allowance, reinforced the conclusion that it entered a construction site to cause disruption "if not mayhem" to scheduled work, the Federal Court has found.

A senior union official who misused his WHS entry permit by entering and filming a workplace for a major TV network has been denied a new entry permit in the Fair Work Commission.