Employers are required to develop return-to-work plans in consultation with injured workers regardless of the severity of their conditions, a regulator has warned after a company was convicted. Meanwhile, a worker has been handed a suspended prison sentence for workers' comp fraud after dozens of boxes of unused prescription drugs were found in his home.
A company director should have foreseen a life-threatening crush incident because he was seriously injured in a similar incident 20 years earlier, a court has found. It also stressed that the director had a positive obligation to familiarise himself with all relevant safety regulations.
A tribunal has ruled that workplace chemicals caused a worker's terminal cancer, after identifying a "significant gap" in the available protections against direct skin exposure.
The company director jailed for recklessly endangering a roofer, who fell to his death, over-relied on the diligence of workers and skimped on safety controls, the Queensland Office of Industrial Relations has revealed.
> Improve WHS by restoring consultation grants, says ACCI; > Safe Rates restoration endorsed by ATA; and > Anti-violence Bill to protect Federal employees.
A Fair Work Commissioner has referred a major employer to a WHS regulator, after finding a worker was allowed to return to work immediately after threatening to commit suicide.
A company director has been jailed for a year, while his company has been fined $1 million, in the latest of a series of cases that show the increasing trend for safety regulators to target individuals and push for harsh penalties, according to a WHS and employment relations lawyer.
A WHS inspector's belief that an employer had "no system in place" to prevent life-threatening falls was "based on a misconception", the NSW Industrial Relations Commission has ruled in revoking another WHS notice.
> Three PCBUs charged with four category 2 breaches; > More WHS inspectors exposed to violence, this time in NSW; and > Guarding set-up breached Australian Standard and OHS Act.
