A local council's innovative contractor management system (CMS) has dramatically improved its safety communication and messaging processes and compliance activities, a spokesperson has revealed.
The fine imposed on an employer that failed to fully implement a mandatory safety measure, because it ran out of the required materials, has been increased more than five-fold on appeal, with a judge stressing penalties must be significant enough to dissuade others from "cutting corners".
A PCBU should have ensured the safety procedures in its paper systems were put into practice and checked and maintained, to prevent a worker being pinned between a wall and a crane load, a court has found.
A company and its director have been fined $420,000, after the latter identified serious safety issues at a site but failed to act to prevent a worker's seven-metre fall. Another PCBU has already been fined $300,000 over the fall.
A company has been found liable to pay death benefits to the dependents of an uninsured contract worker who suffered a fatal heart attack while performing "light" work at the site of one of the company's clients.
A PCBU that has been battling fatality-related WHS charges for three years has had a minor victory in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, which agreed to vary the adverse publicity order against the business.
A man has been ordered to stand trial for the industrial manslaughter of a worker who fell through an unguarded penetration, while employers have been urged to assess and control the risks associated with the potentially deadly disease melioidosis, after a work-related case was recorded.
Two PCBUs that failed to consult on task planning and mechanical aids have been fined over a teenager's death, while a business owner with a long history of safety breaches has been fined for endangering motorists through the performance of "poor quality" work next to a highway.
Three companies and a supervisor have been fined a total of more than $2.1 million over two serious mine safety incidents, including one where the supervisor removed warning signs from a hazardous area just moments before a worker was killed there.
The first duty holder to be charged under Western Australia's Work Health and Safety Act has become the first entity to enter a WHS undertaking in the State, with its $1.47 million worth of enforceable commitments aligning with the recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry into workplace s-xual harassment.