A worker's frustration over his employer's PPE policy and alleged failure to prioritise safety over cost did not excuse his aggressive and intimidating conduct towards his co-workers, a commission has confirmed.
A man has been prosecuted for threatening to kill a WHS inspector, while a safety regulator has issued a special forklift warning for the Christmas period, and another regulator has launched an anti-violence blitz.
Two PCBUs and a director have been fined a total of nearly $500,000 after an unsupervised 14-year-old holiday worker was killed, while an employer has been fined over a violent attack on a worker, after a union officially requested the safety prosecution.
Employers need to put in place far more comprehensive management plans for handling mental health emergencies in FIFO workplaces, according to one of 18 recommendations from a major new study on the mental health of FIFO workers.
Issuing workers with "yellow cards" for WHS breaches has played a pivotal role in an employer reducing its annual workers' comp claim costs from $30,000 to $1,500 in three years, its CEO says.
A government employer has smashed WHS undertaking records with its $10 million-plus commitment to rectifications and enforceable safety initiatives, after poor controls led to a number of workers being injured in violent incidents.
In a five-year dispute, a full Federal Court has confirmed that an "abnormal risk" provision doesn't block compensation to a worker who sustained permanent injuries in a fight in the course of his employment.
A worker's claim that a truck driver tried to run him over implied that she tried to murder him, which meant their employer should have sought much stronger evidence than that supplied by the worker and his "mates" before sacking the driver, a commission has found.
