Browsing: Worker type (all) | Page 12

• WHS notices reach $1m after judge's referral;
  
• Employers charged over deaths at mental health unit and nursery; and
  
• Right-to-disconnect laws tweaked to avoid criminal proceedings.

The powers of elected health and safety representatives and protections against safety discrimination in the offshore sector have been stepped up and aligned with those in WHS laws, in a Bill introduced some six years after a parliamentary inquiry warned the changes were needed to combat a "culture of fear and reprisal".

A major study traversing the past four years has revealed that students are the most frequent perpetrators of digital harassment of Australia's university staff, and senior managers in the sector are not doing enough to safeguard workers' psychological health.

A company and its director have been fined $420,000, after the latter identified serious safety issues at a site but failed to act to prevent a worker's seven-metre fall. Another PCBU has already been fined $300,000 over the fall.

A crane operator who failed to maintain a line of sight with a pedestrian colleague has been fined over the man's death. A PCBU and a manager have been charged with the industrial manslaughter of the colleague.

A company has been found liable to pay death benefits to the dependents of an uninsured contract worker who suffered a fatal heart attack while performing "light" work at the site of one of the company's clients.

A PCBU that has been battling fatality-related WHS charges for three years has had a minor victory in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, which agreed to vary the adverse publicity order against the business.

A man has been ordered to stand trial for the industrial manslaughter of a worker who fell through an unguarded penetration, while employers have been urged to assess and control the risks associated with the potentially deadly disease melioidosis, after a work-related case was recorded.

• Missing signage and access issues among multiple chemical breaches; and
  
• Draft safety laws include mandatory jail for most offenders.

Provisions enabling the "aggregation of conduct" are being added to the ACT's WHS laws to deal with offences like reckless conduct, hindering inspectors and supplying incorrectly labelled chemicals, under a Bill that also significantly increases WHS penalties.