Do you belong to a "Safety First", "Business as Usual" or "Vulnerable" company? If the answer is one of the latter categories, there's likely to be a "vast disconnect" between your managers' commitment to WHS and what happens on the ground, and you're less likely to utilise leading indicators of safety performance, according to a new report.
A principal contractor and a subcontractor have been fined a total of nearly $300,000 after a worker was seriously injured, with a court ruling the former wasn't entitled to rely on the latter to implement agreed safety measures.
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.
The majority of Australia's WHS ministers have agreed to maintain the mandatory status of the workplace exposure standards and change the name of the system to make it clear that exposure limits for hazardous chemicals can't be exceeded.
An employer's lack of policies for preserving CCTV footage of workplace incidents and failings has led to it being found vicariously liable for a worker s-xually harassing and injuring a colleague.
There has been little political will to harmonise Australia's workers' comp schemes over the last two decades, but the emergence of the gig economy and a major report on the future of work could force governments to revisit the issue, or at least expand access to workers' compensation.
Three employers including a repeat offender have been charged with safety breaches, after the deaths of a confined space worker and a backpacker. The latest development in the backpacker's case coincides with two Federal Court rulings on the employment status of workers at the site where she was killed.
A leading safety lawyer has warned that the fourth industrial revolution is shifting rather than eliminating WHS risks, and called for international regulations to prevent the emergence of "safety havens", where organisations can make unsafe decisions affecting other jurisdictions without fear of prosecution.
A supervisor directed a subcontractor to perform a task that resulted in the contractor breaching its own safe work method statement and seriously injured a worker, a judge has found. He ordered the supervisor's company to pay $145,000 in fines and costs over a risk it later eliminated with a $792 investment.
> Supervisor allowed workers in danger zone; > Blitzes reveal hazardous substance breaches, target tower cranes; and > Tools for electing safety reps and the liquor industry released in WA.
