Browsing: WHS decisions (NSW) | Page 11

Labour providers cannot rely on other companies to ensure the health and safety of their workers, a judge has stressed in fining a PCBU over two incidents (including a fatality) that occurred just weeks apart.

A commission has rejected a union's bid to bin a major employer's COVID-19 vaccine mandate, underscoring that under WHS legislation, a "reasonable" direction does not need to be one preferred by or in the best interests of all parties.

An employer that allowed an exception to its safety policy - that running repairs to vehicles only be performed by maintenance staff - has been fined $450,000, after a worker was crushed to death carrying out a repair.

A PCBU that failed to take reasonably practicable risk control measures, such as spending $1,000 on safety parts, has been fined $450,000 after one worker was killed and two others endangered in a pressurised air blast.

Chain-of-responsibility parties like schedulers that fail to ensure drivers are properly trained in managing fatigue, and don't speed, must face penalties that are heavy enough to deter similar offending by others, a superior court has found in increasing a business's fine twelvefold.

A PCBU's failure to implement a system for recording machinery faults resulted in unsupervised personnel developing unsafe ways to use inappropriately modified plant, leading to a worker sustaining serious burns, a court has found in convicting the PCBU.

A PCBU has been handed a pre-discount WHS fine of $500,000, after a worker was "condemned to life as a quadriplegic" by its failure to ensure deliveries to its premises could be unpacked safely.

A PCBU failed to take simple, straightforward steps to avoid the serious risks posed by mobile plant at its site, a court has found in a case involving the death of a container surveyor.

A company that supplied a 200 kilogram door to a worksite did not owe a safety duty of care to a worker who sustained serious injuries trying to lift the door at the site, an appeals court has found in setting aside a ruling against the company.

• Compliance checks follow record WHS recklessness fine; and
  
• La Niña contributes to increase in WHS incidents.