Employers must implement and enforce safe systems of work for seemingly straightforward tasks like stacking materials, a fatality and a $400,000 fine have shown. Meanwhile, regulators have issued alerts after workers were killed in telehandler and hoist incidents.
Two companies and an engineer who allegedly failed to ensure a worksite was supervised in his absence have been charged over a fatal crane incident, while an employer has been fined $110,000 after a worker was nearly struck by a falling object - weighing two tonnes.
Workers' comp claims agents have taken steps to conceal rather than eliminate unethical practices identified in a damning 2016 report, the Victorian Ombudsman has found. The five agents cherry-pick evidence to reject complex claims and intrusively surveil injured workers "without a shred of evidence to justify it", she found.
A major employer has committed $364,200 to developing an industry safety standard after a worker's fingers were degloved in a tag-out incident. Meanwhile, an employer has been fined for safety breaches secretly filmed by an employee.
Thousands of asbestos-containing materials are still in place in workplaces and homes and employers that disregard the deadly hazard are being targeted, according to warnings issued for national Asbestos Awareness Week this week. Meanwhile, the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency's functions are likely to be expanded under the recommendations of a statutory review tabled in Parliament today.
Employers that don't do enough to protect the health and safety of either workers or the community, or to address the risks posed by external sources like bushfires, have been put on notice, after Hazelwood Power Corporation Pty Ltd was found guilty of 10 OHS charges.
> Workplace manslaughter and "crime scene" package launched; > Fatigue tests trialled as truck fatalities surge; and > PCBU and director charged over apprentice's electrocution.
An employer has been fined $650,000 after a worker died in a 12-metre fall from a platform that was completely unsuitable for purpose, making the fall almost inevitable. Meanwhile, a head contractor has entered a $175,000 safety undertaking after a worker was impaled on an obviously hazardous bar.
> Free workplace toolkit tackles perinatal depression; > Health assessment breaches attract civil penalties; > RTW training modules released, while icare winners announced; and > Alerts issued in four states after fatality and other incidents.
