An individual has become the second entity to be fined over the deaths of two workers in a smoko area, while a safety commission has identified six potentially common contraventions relating to the development and use of safe work method statements.
An employer charged over the death of a non-employee has been granted permission to argue, before a jury, that it had been entitled to rely on an experienced worker to apply its established safety systems, with an appeals court stressing that safety offences are "risk-based, not outcome-based".
A journalist's $180,000 post-traumatic stress disorder case, which is likely to transform newsrooms across the country, has detailed steps employers should take to prevent such injuries, including ensuring workers have "immediate" access to employee assistance programs.
> Ladder fall results in full arm amputation, $120k fine; > Work-related DV guide and patient-ratio Regs released; and > Free videos help injured workers prepare for treatment.
A worker's failure to abide by a "rough rule of thumb" in a manual handling document did not amount to him negligently contributing to an injury resulting from his employer's OHS breaches, an appeals court has found.
An employer has been found vicariously liable for a "favoured" employee's s-xual assault of another worker after she collapsed at work, because it failed to take steps to prevent the incident within the meaning of equal opportunity laws.
> Labour-hire scheme with OHS rules commences in 8 weeks; > Host fined $100k in OHS case affected by new labour-hire scheme; and > Industrial manslaughter laws progress in Vic.
Ensuring injured workers are aware from the moment they're injured that suitable duties will be available to them, is a key strategy in a successful return-to-work plan, according to the RTW advisor of a national employer.
The Fair Work Commission has upheld the dismissals of a worker who sent a "Snapchat" of his p-nis to a colleague, and another who smoked outside a designated area. It has also ordered an employer to pay nearly $70,000 to a worker who was dismissed for a single line of abuse to a contractor.
