Archive for February 29, 2016

Abuse of the Workers’ Compensation System Found by Court

A worker who was filmed performing various manual activities while claiming incapacity payments has been denied an unfair dismissal remedy, with the Fair Work Commission finding he had abused the workers’ compensation system.

In Adelaide, Senior Deputy President Matthew O’Callaghan found his dismissal was warranted because he couldn’t be trusted not to make fraudulent claims in future, and his actions undermined the workers’ compensation system.

“Even if [the employer] had taken another form of disciplinary action against [the worker], apart from employment termination, his

Assess the Risks

An employer that failed to properly assess the risks associated with moving heavy objects has been fined $130,000, after a worker was crushed to death.

Perth Magistrate Martin Flynn said the fact that the Western Australian employer – Exact Mining Services – had performed the same task for 10 years without prior incident didn’t reduce the seriousness of the offence, which involved a “significant failure to not address a foreseeable risk”.

“Companies cannot become complacent and allow unsafe practices to occur during their usual operations,” the Magistrate said.

In December 2014,

Employer found liable for racist comments

A commission has found an employer vicariously liable for two workers’ racist comments, and stressed that a company’s anti-discrimination policies must be “communicated effectively” to staff.

Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Simon Rice awarded the victim of the comments $12,000.

He noted that there was no evidence of the victim sustaining a psychological injury, suggesting the compensation order would have been much higher if she had been injured.

In February 2014, the Centreprise Resource Group Pty Ltd technical support and administration officer, employed under an Indigenous wage subsidy program,

Depressed workers rampant in white-collar sector

Employers need to “intensify” their strategies for reducing work-related stress, according to researchers, who have found a third of workers in a white-collar industry could be clinically depressed.

They said their findings mirrored those from a number of international studies on a wide range of industries.

Based on a survey of bank employees in northern Brazil between 2012 and 2013, the University of Sao Paulo researchers found a “significant association” between work-related stressors and depressive symptoms.

They found 32 per cent of the 1046 participating employees presented depressive