Browsing: WHS decisions (QLD) | Page 12

An employer is not liable for a worker being urinated on by an intoxicated colleague, but companies do have a safety duty to protect personnel from "unpleasant" interactions in accommodation facilities, a superior court has found.

A PCBU has been fined $240,000 for its "reckless" approach to dust control over a period of nearly seven years, which appears to have resulted in at least four workers developing the deadly lung disease silicosis.

An upstream WHS duty holder's failure to properly respond to safety concerns raised about a structural design resulted in a worker sustaining physical and psychological injuries, a court has found.

One of several PCBUs charged with WHS breaches on a notoriously troubled infrastructure project has successfully challenged the complaint, with a court finding the complaint is too defective to be saved by amendments or the provision of particulars.

A PCBU has been fined for failing to report a head knock to a regulator, while a worker who should have refused his employer's request to carry out unsafe work has been fined over a co-worker's injuries, and a man has been penalised for his "disgraceful" asbestos breaches.

A judge has increased an employer's WHS fine nearly three-fold on appeal, stressing that a worker's injury-causing "stupidity" occurred in the context of the employer's failure to separate pedestrians and mobile plant, and slamming a magistrate's "almost unintelligible" remarks on the matter.

A regulator has warned that union officials must hold valid right-of-entry permits when entering sites under provisions for "resolving" WHS matters, after the High Court blocked an appeal on the issue.

• WHS reprimands not forceful enough before death; and
  
• Workplace restrictions continue after end of Qld COVID lockdown.

A manager's "overtly transactional" text message proposals and acts of withholding work to intimidate a worker into having s-x with him, meant going to work was "fraught with difficulty" for the worker and warranted police intervention, a commissioner has found.

Employers have been urged to boost their safety standards by maintaining a sense of "chronic unease", after a company and two individuals were convicted and fined over a young worker's death attributed to a workplace culture of complacency.