Browsing: Work at heights | Page 3

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.

A magistrate has slammed a company's "casual approach" to WHS, which "fell well below the standards required" of it, finding a worker would have been conscious of and avoided placing himself in a hazardous position if proper systems had been implemented.

A site's principal contractor has been ordered to pay damages to another company's director who sustained serious injuries falling through a void he knew was not properly protected. A judge found the principal was obligated to guard against unsafe acts of temporary inadvertence or inattention.

• Alleged WHS recklessness spotted by members of public;
  
• High Court halts four-year state-of-connection dispute; and
  
• Workers' compensation prosecutions increasing in WA.

Two PCBUs have been convicted and fined a total of more than $530,000 for multiple WHS contraventions, after a heavy object fell and smashed a glass atrium roof, seriously injuring a site worker and a passing courier.

A principal contractor that failed to adhere to its own safety inspection regime, when unscheduled out-of-sequence work was carried out, has been fined $412,500 after a worker was left with devastating injuries.

Employers have been urged to identify all powerlines at their workplaces, including around entry and exit points, after a company was convicted and fined over an electrocution. Employers have also been warned about the presence of asbestos in workplace fire doors, following exposure incidents.

A PCBU previously prosecuted over a fatality, and a facilities manager who failed to manage the entrapment hazard posed by a disused stairwell, where a visitor died, have been fined for WHS contraventions in Queensland.

A worker who became the sole director of a company in mysterious circumstances, and played no role in its running, has been fined $120,000 for breaching his WHS due diligence duties, after a teenage apprentice fell 12 metres.

An employer has been convicted of category-3 WHS breaches for failing to monitor a labour-hire worker's tasks at a placement, where he was injured performing work outside of the scope of his experience.