Archive for January 31, 2016

WHS Advisor Sacked for Inappropriate Comments

The Fair Work Commission has upheld the dismissal of a WHS advisor who made a joke about rape during a safety investigation.

In Brisbane, the FWC found the Town and Country Community Options Inc worker, also a disability support worker, deliberately made the joke in front of a female co-worker who’d previously complained about his inappropriate jokes and comments, and his employer couldn’t confidently rely on his judgement in the future.

In September 2015, the worker was interviewing a male co-worker who had struck a kangaroo with

Do active design workplaces improve health and safety?

An Australian study has found employees who work in a new “active design building” spend less time sitting and have less lower back pain, but are more concerned by noise levels.

Researchers from the University of Sydney found that while the employees believed the new building was “more stimulating” than their previous workplaces, productivity remained mostly unchanged.

“Active design is a new concept that includes levels of environmental design, workplace culture and policy,” the researchers said.

“It addresses features of the built environment that can support

Shift workers warned against caffeine vicious circle

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland is urging shift workers to avoid the vicious circle of relying on coffee or energy drinks to keep them awake at work, and taking sedatives to help them sleep when they get home.

Paradoxically, working at night can make it difficult for workers to make healthy choices that help them cope with shift work, and it can be “very tempting to rely on an artificial ‘fix’”, the regulator says.

“Shift workers often turn to stimulants such as coffee, energy drinks or

Risk Assessments, are you due for one?

An employer has failed to convince the South Australian IRC that introducing a formal hazard identification and risk assessment process wouldn’t have prevented a worker being crushed to death in plant.

Industrial Magistrate Stephen Lieschke rejected Inco Ships Pty Ltd’s claim that its informal risk assessment and work instructions were “so well known” at the time of the incident that “no extra safety could be achieved”, and found it guilty of breaching the now-repealed State OHSW Act.

In September 2012, an Inco Ships deck mechanic was

Slip in home bathroom was work-related

A manager who injured his back at home while he was “hurrying” to answer his work phone has been awarded workers’ compensation, with a commission finding he satisfied the test established by the High Court motel sex case.

Queensland IRC Deputy President Daniel O’Connor found the manager had been on call and his actions at the time of the incident were encouraged by his employer.

At about 10pm on 21 March 2013, the Blenners Transport Pty Ltd fleet service manager sustained a disc protrusion in his lower

Gossip constitutes bullying under Fair Work Act

Spreading “misinformation or ill-will” against a worker constitutes bullying under the Fair Work Act, a commissioner has found in advising a company to develop policies on how workers in neighbouring businesses should treat each other.

FW Commissioner Danny Cloghan also found that telling a worker to “‘get fucked’… departs from normal social interaction in the workplace and [falls] within the definition of bullying if repetitive”.

However, he dismissed an application for a stop-bullying order – made by a worker who allegedly received such abuse – because

10 ‘Pattern’ Causes of Workplace Disasters

Renowned OHS academic Professor Michael Quinlan has identified 10 “pattern causes” that repeatedly recur in workplace disasters – and worker behaviour isn’t one of them.

The evidence doesn’t support the notion that worker behaviour or unsafe acts are a “predominant or pattern cause” of mining disasters, oil-rig explosions, factory fires, airplane crashes and other fatal work incidents, Quinlan says in his new book, Ten Pathways to Death and Disaster: Learning from Fatal Incidents in Mines and Other High Hazard Workplaces.

Prior to the New Zealand Pike River

RSRT orders employers to pay safe rates

The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal has issued a remuneration order affecting supermarket chains and other employers, and noted it has received no evidence disputing the link between low driver pay and poor safety outcomes.

The Transport Workers Union welcomed the order, saying it will ensure drivers are paid for waiting and queuing time, while loading and unloading vehicles, and while cleaning, inspecting, servicing and repairing their trucks and trailers.

It also ensures retailers and manufacturers that use transport operators are held to account for pressures placed

Worker sacked for failing drug test

An employer was entitled to sack rather than warn a worker for failing a drug test because he knowingly attended work while unfit, the Fair Work Commission has found.

In Melbourne, Commissioner Julius Roe found the worker also “unreasonably sought to avoid taking responsibility for the positive methylamphetamine test”, and rejected his unfair dismissal claim.

The North West Crewing Pty Ltd deckhand failed a workplace drug test four days after attending a party in Bali in July 2015.

His employer sacked him for having levels of methylamphetamine in