Browsing: WHS decisions (WA) | Page 6

A company and its director have been fined a total of $126,000, after their electrical safety contraventions were referred to a WHS prosecutor. Another company was recently fined for similar breaches, after an apprentice was nearly killed.

In a case sending an important reminder to duty holders on the ongoing presence of asbestos-containing materials in many workplaces, two companies have been fined after engineering workers were potentially exposed to asbestos fibres. Meanwhile, an employer has been charged with failing to provide a safe system for unloading imported stones slabs, after a worker was killed.

Two companies that failed to arrange formal inspections of a large workplace tank have been fined for work health and safety breaches, after the structure failed and exposed workers to the risk of death.

A principal contractor and an employer have been found jointly liable for a worker's three-metre fall off a ladder, after they failed to implement a system to prevent safety measures from being dismantled prematurely or to erect them as needed.

• WHS enforcement policy for COVID excludes vaccine plan; and
  
• BHP fails to manage known projectile risk.

A regulator has issued a warning on the dangers of unlicensed electrical work, after a homemade device inspired by internet videos killed a man. Another regulator has launched an investigation into a fatality involving a forklift and a shipping container.

A WA company has been fined $256,000, after a worker died from head injuries incurred while using the incorrect tool for a task. Meanwhile, another employer's risk assessment failures have led to a $200,000 fine, after a worker's arm was amputated in a machine entanglement.

An employer's amputation-related gross negligence conviction has been downgraded to a general safety duty charge, in a judgment examining the "actual knowledge" of the defendant and a finding of "wilful blindness".

One of four entities charged over the death of a 17-year-old worker, in a 12-metre fall, has been fined $320,000, after a court heard its fall-prevention strategy required personnel to disconnect their harnesses when moving from one high area to another.

An employer that identified but failed to implement a critical safety control measure has been fined heavily, for the second time, in relation to offences on an infrastructure project.