Browsing: WHS decisions (VIC) | Page 41

An employer breached equal opportunity laws in focusing solely on a worker's pre-injury duties when it decided to dismiss her for safety reasons, a tribunal has found.

• Essendon bans highlight OHS duties of clubs and players;
  
• Ruling on workers' comp accruals applies to Tasmania; and
  
• Safety management rules extended to all Tasmanian mines.

A Court of Appeal majority has upheld a fatality-related OHS charge against Baiada Poultry Pty Ltd, after finding the High Court's Kirk decision doesn't require charge-sheets to specify "detailed" preventative actions.

An employer has been ordered to pay a worker $1.3 million in damages for PTSD and bipolar disorder, after she was repeatedly s-xually harassed and a colleague threatened to rape her.

A worker has been fined for cutting a colleague's buttocks with a saw while engaging in horseplay, while a manager and his employer have both been fined after a worker was seriously injured while riding in a non-compliant forklift cage.

• Employer fined $285k over fatal explosion;
  
• High fine and costs for labour-hire worker's death; and
  
• Fatality caused by lack of training and risk assessment.

Five Victorian employers have been fined for exclusion zone breaches and other safety failures, while a man has been convicted of workers' comp fraud. In Queensland, a company has been fined just $15,000 for a guarding breach, despite being prosecuted for similar offences twice before.

The Essendon Football Club has pleaded guilty to OHS charges relating to the 2011-12 supplements scandal, while the Supreme Court has granted a former player access to AFL documents to help him decide whether to sue the club and the AFL for exposing him to health and safety risks.

A coroner has recommended that a major employer regularly review its vehicle defect-reporting procedures, after finding its failure to fix a fault, which a worker had complained about, contributed to that man's death.

In a long-running workplace bullying dispute involving insulting Facebook posts and an employee "Code of Silence", the Fair Work Commission has ordered an employer to train managers in forensic investigative techniques and arrange meetings with a safety inspector.