Employers must clearly set out the circumstances in which OHS procedures apply, a Fair Work Commission full bench has stressed in upholding an appeal from a worker who was sacked after an attempted robbery. Meanwhile, a second entity has been fined over a worker's five-metre fall through a skylight.
An employer and its director have been fined a total of $880,000, after their departure from acceptable safety standards for handling heavy materials and construction led to the death of an apprentice.
An employer has been convicted and fined after a worker fell three metres while performing a task that was previously outsourced to an expert company, while another employer has been fined after a worker's face was lacerated by an unguarded powered hand tool.
A PCBU has been convicted and fined for WHS offences after an offsite worker used the wrong chemical to clean a machine, resulting in a man sustaining facial burns. Meanwhile, another employer has been fined after a worker fell off an unguarded platform.
A site supervisor and an operations manager have been fined for ignoring workers' safety concerns and directing concrete panels to be placed next to powerlines. Meanwhile, a regulator has issued a height warning, following a series of falls, prosecutions and category 1 WHS charges.
The harmonised WHS Act in NSW is being amended to include new penalty notice offences to crackdown on high recidivism rates, and to give safety regulators extraterritorial powers.
In the first WHS penalty handed down in the South Australian Employment Tribunal, an employer has been fined after a worker was struck by a forklift. Meanwhile, three Victorian employers have been fined a total of $110,000 after a spate of incidents, including one where a worker was struck by an object that fell 13 storeys.
