Category Archive for : ‘Policies & Procedures’

New Amendment to WHS Laws

The national model WHS laws are being amended to clarify the reach of provisional improvement notices (PINs), increase penalties for WHS entry breaches and reduce “unnecessary regulatory burden”.

Safe Work Australia CEO Michelle Baxter told Senate Estimates last week that under the May 2014 COAG plan to reduce “red tape” in the model laws, a range of proposed changes were drafted and approved by SWA’s tripartite members early this month.

An SWA spokesperson today told OHS Alert that COAG asked state and territory work health and safety ministers to examine

Dealing with Workplace Bullying and Victim Sick Leave

Employers must approach workers who take sick leave after complaining of workplace bullying with caution, but also ensure such workers participate in investigations, a senior Fair Work Commission member says in a new book.

In Workplace Bullying, FWC Vice President Joseph Catanzariti and co-author Keryl Egan, a psychologist, say “it is not uncommon” for a worker to allege bullying and “immediately go on sick leave, whether or not they are covered by workers’ compensation”.

“This can frustrate an employer’s attempt to commence investigating the matter,” they

A lack of safety training has caused a death

A young worker who died after being left to operate a forklift alone in an industrial freezer hadn’t received OHS or forklift training, the NSW Coroner has found.

Coroner Carmel Forbes found the employer didn’t have a freezer safety policy or a policy that prohibited employees from working on their own.

In April 2013, 23-year-old Vijay Singh died from complications of hypothermia that developed while he was trapped for about an hour in a large freezer warehouse in one of Laurent D Pty Ltd’s Matraville,

OHS / WHS Compliance

Safe Work Australia is a national body responsible for leading the development of policy related to work safety in Australia (OHS / WHS). They also set national policy on worker compensation for the nation by creating model codes and practices and developing broad policies. Safe Work Australia does not regulate the policies it makes; this is the role of the states, territories and commonwealth. The agency is designed to be a partnership between trades, unions and the government with the overall goal of worker safety

How preventing workplace bullying makes a more productive work place!

A recent court case about workplace bullying that brought great distress and ill health to the bullied employee is a graphic example of what can go wrong when existing policy and procedures are not implemented. Therefore as a business owner preventing workplace bullying is a task which should not be ignored.

The case concerned a supervisor bullying an employee who had just returned from maternity leave. The bullied employee complained to the State Manager who by procedure should have involved the HR