The Federal Government has highlighted the link between low pay - along with the threat of "deactivation" - and poor safety outcomes in the gig sector, in announcing "world-leading" laws giving new powers to the Fair Work Commission.
A workplace supervisor who was initially charged with four counts of manslaughter, in relation to the deaths of four police officers in a road crash, could now be jailed for up to five years for a reckless breach of safety laws, with an appeals court reversing a decision to stay the recklessness case.
A unique study of "shift work tolerance" has identified the types of workers that are most likely to suffer from serious intolerance symptoms, highlighting the need to consider occupation type and work context when tailoring work schedules to individuals.
A long-serving worker who experienced five years of bullying from a co-worker in the form of verbal threats and aggression has been awarded compensation for a psychological injury, after the bully was promoted to be his supervisor.
Developing a roster-matched sleep schedule, planning transitions to days off and using napping as a tool, are among 18 new "guidelines" for shift workers developed by Australian researchers to address unique challenges overlooked by traditional advice.
Shift work is linked to two serious health issues that shift workers are particularly unlikely to seek treatment for, and workplace awareness campaigns are not helping, researchers have found.
An employer that was found to have negligently caused a worker to crash his car while driving home from a 12-hour shift has overturned the ruling, with an appeals court finding: there was insufficient evidence to suggest fatigue caused the crash; and the employer had fulfilled its common law duty of care.
A worker was distracted by the death of a colleague, and fatigued from 26 consecutive days of work, when he was "cleared" as "fit" by an unqualified counsellor to perform a dangerous loading task, and then killed in an exclusion zone, a coronial inquest has found.
An employer has been fined $350,000 after a jury found it guilty of offences relating to a fatal instruction to work in the dark. Meanwhile, a utility company has been fined over a degloving incident, and two organisations have been charged after a child drowned.
Providing workers with a choice over their shift characteristics can reduce rates of burnout and exhaustion, a study had found, suggesting that feelings of autonomy can counteract the adverse effects of difficult job demands such as long hours.