Browsing: WHS decisions (SA) | Page 4

A PCBU's lack of safety processes for preventing work being performed near overhead powerlines caused a worker to suffer "devastating" burns and lose both legs, a court has found in convicting the PCBU and its director.

A company and one of its directors have been fined, and handed a hefty decontamination bill, for embarking on a clean-up exercise that could have exposed hundreds of people to asbestos fibres. Meanwhile, a regulator has issued a warning to PCBUs following a "horror month" of nail gun incidents.

A PCBU has been convicted and handed a near-record WHS penalty over the mechanical asphyxiation death of a worker in plant, with a safety measure that was assumed to be effective but not tested.

A worker's $6 million adverse action claim has been rejected. He contended he was unlawfully sacked for protecting his own health and safety by refusing to work with cadavers emitting highly toxic fumes.

An appeals tribunal has quashed a $115,160 WHS discrimination damages award for a worker, who claimed she was bullied, after finding her expressions of "fear" and "anxiety" in communications to senior staff did not amount to raising a WHS issue or concern.

Administrative safety controls over-rely on workers' judgement, leave no room for inadvertence or inattention, and are "never enough" on their own, a court has found in convicting an employer over crush injuries.

• Inexpensive part could have prevented injuries and prosecution; and
  
• Dozens of high-risk work licensees require re-assessment.

A PCBU and its director could have prevented an inexperienced worker's serious spinal injuries, and avoided their WHS convictions, through simple pre-start checks, a regulator has revealed.

A WHS regulator investigating reports that a worker's psychiatric injury involved WHS contraventions, by a major employer and one of its officers, has been granted court orders giving it access to a transcript of related compensation proceedings.

A supermarket giant has been convicted of WHS offences after a "blind spot" in its inspection and maintenance regime allowed degraded equipment to fall on a worker, inflicting multiple fractures.