Browsing: Noise | Page 1

An employer has been convicted and fined after a worker's leg was crushed by moving equipment with an alarm he couldn't hear over other noise and through his hearing protection. The employer had assessed such an incident as "almost certain" to occur, but didn't take any steps to prevent it.

• Safety sign-off deception leads to electrical injuries;
  
• New WHS provisions commencing in WA soon; and
  
• Employers told to utilise WHS "snapshots" in Tas.

A major employer has been found liable for the hearing loss of an "administrative" worker, with an appeals commission confirming she conducted visits to dangerously noisy sites.

Employers have been urged to consider the multiplicative effects that exposure to multiple occupational hazards - ranging from night work and noise to solvents and heavy metals - have on the development of one of the world's most common serious health conditions, with a unique study finding the risks arise even with low-level exposures.

• Company charged with endangering customers, after fatality;
  
• Inspectors issue hundreds of WHS notices in three-day blitz; and
  
• WHS resources for new audiometric duties in NSW released.

An employer has unsuccessfully challenged a hearing-loss claim by contending most of its equipment satisfied workplace health and safety requirements for lack of noisiness, with a commission finding at least one of its leaf blowers didn't fit into this category.

A worker who alleged she wasn't provided with hearing protection in noisy areas in her 30 years with Qantas, has won her industrial deafness claim, with a commission rejecting the airline's intermittent-noise case.

Poor adherence to safety regulations and exposure to diesel emissions - even at levels below recommended thresholds - have been linked, by two studies, to an increased risk of injuries and biological changes that can lead to cancer.

• Fatality charge coincides with industrial gate warning;
  
• Long-term WHS exemption expiring in NSW; and
  
• Comcare releases Q&A on new psychosocial regulations.

Despite 18 years of varying high-level noise exposure, a worker's last employer has been found liable for his industrial deafness.