A PCBU and its director were on notice from a 2014 regulatory visit and prohibition notice of their WHS duty to properly guard machinery, a tribunal has ruled in convicting and fining them over a worker's 2020 degloving injury.
A PCBU, whose slapdash fall prevention efforts created a trip hazard that increased the risk, has been fined $150,000 and ordered to put its director through safety training, after a young worker fell nearly 8.5 metres and suffered multiple permanent traumatic injuries to his limbs and face.
A coroner has recommended mandating the use of "secondary guarding technology" on all elevated work platforms (EWPs), following an inquiry into the death of a worker who was crushed between an EWP's guardrail and a roof truss.
An employer that implemented stringent PPE requirements for a toxic substance, but then downgraded them, has been convicted over two exposure incidents, with a court finding its breaches would have attracted a $350,000 fine if it hadn't pleaded guilty.
In a case examining WHS clauses on the provision of PPE, a commission has stayed an improvement notice blocking a university from charging students to be fit tested for masks, finding it is arguable the students are the "workers" of placement providers rather than the university.
A PCBU and its director have been convicted over a worker's 6.5-metre fall onto a concrete floor, with a judge finding they were obligated to provide personnel with external height safety training, but failed to do so.
In only the third case of its kind in NSW, a PCBU has pleaded guilty to recklessly breaching the State's WHS laws, in relation to the death of a teenage worker in a scaffolding disaster - an incident that led to new safety standards and calls for tougher enforcement.
A tribunal has set aside the decision to reject a depression claim from a man who was s-xually assaulted at work as a teenager, after finding the medical evidence relied on to block the claim failed to consider all the trauma the Navy veteran had experienced.
A business owner who claimed he wasn't required to instruct employees on the use of PPE, because it was "common sense", has been ordered to pay thousands of dollars to a teenage worker who lost his sight in one eye. Meanwhile, a regulator has warned the agriculture sector against the common belief that serious safety incidents don't occur among experienced operators.
