An employer has failed in its bid to stay a WHS improvement notice, by claiming a safety inspector's limited enquires led to him relying on outdated documentation and proposing remedial measures that "were incapable of being complied with".
An employer has been convicted and fined $450,000 over a fatality, after a practice of leaving a worker alone to perform high-risk work "developed into a procedure in its own right" to allow his supervisor to complete residual tasks like paperwork.
In a rare case, a PCBU has been convicted and fined under WHS consultation provisions, after its failure to "consult, co-operate and co-ordinate" with other duty holders led to a worker sustaining serious injuries in a fall.
A PCBU that could have prevented the death of an 18-year-old worker through simple visual inspections has been handed one of the highest WHS fines in NSW history.
A worker with serious strain and lifting injuries has been awarded $1.3 million in damages, with a court finding his employer, a major joint-venture company, could have prevented the risks through simple precautions, including one involving a $400 spend.
A PCBU's WHS fine over a worker's death in a fall has been increased four-fold to $300,000, with an appeals court finding the fatal risk would have been obvious from a single "glance" at the relevant work area, and the PCBU's safety personnel failed to take steps to reduce the risk despite discussing it in meetings.
An employer that responded sluggishly to a series of improvement notices and then failed to preserve the scene of a serious incident, resulting in head-crush injuries, has been handed multiple workplace safety fines. Meanwhile, a WHS regulator has expressed disappointment at the results of a follow-up blitz.
