The assistance a manager provided to a worker has helped quash the worker's claim that she was unreasonably performance managed - and injured - over issues stemming from her employer's inadequate resources.
Employers in the highly hazardous mining sector could be compelled to adopt better leading indicators of safety performance, subjected to more unannounced regulatory inspections, and targeted by new laws aimed at protecting workers who raise safety concerns, under recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry.
In a WHS case involving the deaths of two teenage students from overseas, a court has imposed a penalty much higher than that recommended by the prosecution, stressing that unlike workers, children are particularly vulnerable to business-related hazards because they haven't been trained to recognise or mitigate risks.
An employer's efforts to address a worker's "unattainable" workload might have come too late, but the woman's psychological injury was barred from compensation, an appeals court has ruled, finding a previous decision applied the wrong reasonable management action test.
Employers could face increasing regulatory scrutiny where workplace fatalities or serious injuries occur, with a union pressuring government ministers to "get serious" about safety prosecutions. Meanwhile, a workplace supervisor has been fined over an induction incident.
This major OHS Alert report reviews all the need-to-know workplace health and safety and workers' comp developments from the past few months, including the passage of game-changing Respect@Work laws, numerous WHS amendments, COVID rulings, a state-first workplace manslaughter charge, and a record-smashing reckless conduct fine.
