Browsing: WHS decisions (NSW) | Page 8

A PCBU that failed to prevent workers from taking contaminated clothing home, or tell a labourer he needed to be clean-shaven when wearing a mask, has been convicted and fined for category-3 WHS breaches.

An employer that was found to have negligently caused a worker to crash his car while driving home from a 12-hour shift has overturned the ruling, with an appeals court finding: there was insufficient evidence to suggest fatigue caused the crash; and the employer had fulfilled its common law duty of care.

A worker who was sacked for engaging in a verbal altercation with railway personnel on his way to work has been reinstated, with a commission finding his actions didn't warrant his dismissal and he didn't pose a safety risk to his colleagues, despite his history of "aggressive outbursts".

A PCBU that failed to properly assess the risks posed by its new work system and equipment has been handed a pre-discount fine of $240,000, after a worker fell and was impaled by a steel bar.

A company that was fined heavily over the death of a teenager, in the notorious Macquarie Park, NSW scaffolding collapse, has been permanently banned from performing contract work, while its director has been disqualified for a decade.

A PCBU has been handed a pre-discount fine of $540,000, following the death of a subcontracted site manager in a 19-metre fall, with a court finding it failed to enforce both its, and the subcontractor's, safe work method statements.

A major employer has been handed a pre-discount WHS fine of $800,000, after a worker was electrocuted just nine weeks after a similar incident that "should have been a significant wake-up call".

A judge has rebuked a PCBU for claiming a WHS regulator should have done more to educate operators like it in an emerging sector, finding the PCBU "clearly" failed to keep abreast of its safety duties, and fining it $180,000 over a four-metre fall.

An employer has been fined $360,000 after a worker fell nine metres from a roof and sustained severe injuries, in a case that compelled the sentencing judge to repeat his warning about an industry's workplace health and safety "carnage".

Qantas has failed in its second attempt to stay proceedings, which include alternative charges, involving its alleged discriminatory conduct against an elected health and safety representative in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.