Safe Work Australia has released a series of guidance materials clarifying: PCBUs' duties to monitor the health of workers exposed to hazardous substances; the substances that trigger this obligation; and how to act on medical reports.
> Director charged under CoR safety laws in national first; > Employer failed to act on OHS advisor's advice; and > Company should have made delivery drivers hand over their keys.
An employer that largely ignored the reasonably practicable and inexpensive control measures identified in 10 improvement notices has been convicted and fined $125,000, while two regulators have issued fatality alerts outlining height and post-bushfire safety measures.
The upcoming commencement of workplace manslaughter legislation coincides with a period of unprecedented regulatory activity and record-high inspection numbers, Victorian duty holders have been warned. Meanwhile, an employer has been charged with illegally stockpiling chemicals, and safety regulators have issued coronavirus and fatality alerts.
A national employer charged with workplace safety breaches, involving non-compliant windows in its premises, has spent $1.4 million on remedial works and entered an undertaking to escape prosecution, after a child was injured.
In this much anticipated report, OHS Alert outlines all the major legislative changes and court decisions on workplace health and safety and workers' comp issues in the final quarter of 2019.
For an absence from work to count as an "authorised recess", there must be an expectation by the employer that the worker will return to work, a court has found in a case involving a worker who was injured driving to his doctor.
Employers should consider including, in their first-aid kits, asthma-relieving inhalers and spacers and epinephrine auto-injectors (EpiPens) for the treatment of anaphylaxis, according to a draft Compliance Code mirroring national WHS amendments.
> Directors' WHS breaches injured boy on amusement device; > Mobile phone distraction fines increase by 150% next week; and > Worker killed by inadvertent crane operation.
