Browsing: Contractors

In a rare category-3 WHS case, a PCBU and its director have been convicted and fined after a balustrade at their site was removed by an unknown person, resulting in a worker sustaining serious fall injuries.

One of four entities charged over the death of a 17-year-old worker, in a 12-metre fall, has been fined $320,000, after a court heard its fall-prevention strategy required personnel to disconnect their harnesses when moving from one high area to another.

Employers that voluntarily fit their vehicles with autonomous early braking systems and other safety technologies could be designated as preferred contractors for government work, under a recommendation from an inquest into a child's death in a road accident.

A commission has revoked an improvement notice issued to a site's principal contractor, after a fatal fall, requiring it to review work systems installed by a specialist company.

In upholding two WHS improvement notices, a commission has stressed that a PCBU cannot delegate its duties around workplace facilities to a subcontractor, and found that one of the PCBU's submissions was "unsupported by the laws of physics".

A judge has discussed the interaction of the WHS duties of companies and the specialist skills of their subcontractors, in sentencing one of nine entities charged with serious safety offences, including manslaughter and reckless conduct, after a pedestrian worker was killed by a crane.

An appeals court has upheld a multimillion-dollar damages ruling (with minor variations), confirming a contractor was vicariously liable for a technician's negligent act that caused four workers to sustain injuries in a jolting lift.

Safe Work Australia has published a new WHS Code of Practice, revealed, in its latest statistics report, that the nation's work-related fatality rate increased two years in a row, and informed gig employers of their workers' comp obligations.

A PCBU and a supervisor it engaged to act on its behalf have been fined heavily for permitting work to be performed at a site before crucial safety measures were in place - a failing that resulted in a teenager sustaining serious injuries in a fall.

In an ongoing case involving a fatal fall, and an alleged failure to enforce a system requiring vehicles to be unloaded from the ground, a court has rejected a PCBU's claims that the prosecutor's repeated use of the conjunction "and/or" unfairly affected its defence.