While direct employers are often considered more culpable for employees' injuries than overseeing contractors, a court has found a principal is as responsible as a subcontractor for a six-metre fall, and fined it $180,000.
> West Gate Bridge anniversary sends work safety message; > PCBU failed to enforce exclusion zones; and > Safety blitz moves to next Canberra suburb, issues 31 notices.
An employer negligently created unnecessary height risks by modifying a workplace vehicle, an appeals court has ruled in reversing an earlier decision and finding an injured worker is entitled to damages.
A PCBU that failed to enforce the use of hi-vis clothing or establish an exclusion zone for mobile plant has been handed a high mid-range WHS penalty, after a 16-year-old worker was run over by an excavator, and survived through the "minor miracle" of being pressed into muddy soil.
An unlicensed worker who conducted a "quick fix" of electrical wiring created a workplace electrocution risk, providing a valid reason for his dismissal, a commission has found.
Two major PCBUs have been fined $375,000 each, plus a total of $90,000 in prosecution costs, after their failures to meet their own safety-in-design requirements caused pipework to fail and kill a worker.
A PCBU allegedly failed to enforce safety standards and created a culture of non-compliance that led to a fatality, a judge has heard in upholding the business's WHS charge. However, the judge struck out a complaint against the business's co-defendant.
A company and its director have been handed maximum OHS penalties, totalling more than $466,000, after a truck with poorly maintained brakes crashed and killed its young driver, while a safety regulator has issued a string of notices in the latest phase of its Canberra blitz.
A business operator who failed to instruct workers on how to self-manage their work capacity in hot conditions has been fined over the heat stress death of a backpacker employee. Meanwhile, a company and one of its directors have been fined for failing to comply with or display a forklift-related prohibition notice.
In a case examining the discretionary powers of a relatively new anti-bullying jurisdiction, an employer has failed to block a worker's stop-bullying claim by contending he was medically incapable of returning to work under his supervisor, the alleged bully.
