Browsing: Contractors | Page 6

A company accused of breaching Fair Work laws by blocking a union official from testing respirable dust levels, on a major project, has claimed it complies with all air-monitoring-related WHS rules, and the suitability of the union's testing device is questionable.

An employer that was effectively forced, by a judge's erroneous ruling on a fatality, to plead guilty to breaching regulations for high-risk work, has been fined $420,000 after a retrial, saving it $430,000 in penalties.

An employer has been fined $360,000 after a worker fell nine metres from a roof and sustained severe injuries, in a case that compelled the sentencing judge to repeat his warning about an industry's workplace health and safety "carnage".

One of three PCBUs charged over a double fall - an incident that has already attracted $800,000 in fines - has escaped a reckless conduct conviction, in a ruling on its duty to labourers it referred to another company.

WHS fines relating to a confined-space fatality have surpassed $1 million, after the sentencing of a PCBU over failures to enforce coherent plant isolation procedures and causing the death of a worker, as well as serious injuries to two others attempting to rescue him.

A commission full bench has affirmed an earlier ruling revoking a WHS regulator's improvement notice issued to a site's principal contractor after a fatal fall.

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A local council that failed to conduct the proper checks before authorising a company, with a dismal safety record, to operate an amusement device at a festival, has been penalised for consultation contraventions relating to an incident where 12 people, mainly children, fell from heights of up to 12 metres.

A senior judge has described the ongoing spate of injuries and deaths in the roofing industry as "carnage", adding that the vast majority of incidents could have been avoided by using simple "well-known and effective safety precepts".

A PCBU that unsuccessfully battled against its "prolix" WHS charges been fined $425,000, in relation to an incident where a confined-space worker fell into perlite powder and died from suffocation.