News

Another fake high-risk work licence discovered

WorkSafe WA has reiterated its warning to employers to carefully check the validity of high risk work licences, after discovering a man, going by the name Peter Kevin Jenkins, is using a falsified licence covering 12 classes of high-risk work.

The fraudulent document stated that he held licences for advanced rigging, advanced scaffolding, boom-type EWPs, concrete placing booms, dogging, forklifts, hoists, derrick cranes, portal boom cranes, slewing mobile cranes, tower cranes and vehicle loading cranes.

“We warned members of the public back in March” – see related article –

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

Protecting Employees against the Summer Sun

A regulator has warned employers of the unique risks summer poses to their workers – and they’re not all heat-related. Meanwhile, researchers have found 50 per cent of Australia’s outdoor workers aren’t provided with sunscreen.

ReturnToWork SA said that despite many businesses closing or scaling down over the summer holiday period, there have been more than 17,000 work injury claims, costing about $273 million, over the last six summers in South Australia.

Since 2010, the average cost of a work injury claim in summer is about $16,000,

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

How Sleep Deprivation is harming your workforce!

Sleep deprivation contributes to “numerous negative occupational outcomes”, such as increased risk of injury and costly presenteeism, but few workplace wellbeing programs include sleep improvement initiatives, US researchers say.

“Among the employers offering a lifestyle management program in their employee wellness program (EWP), most of them target nutrition/weight management (79%), smoking (77%), and fitness (72%),” they say.

The University of Pennsylvania researchers say their study of 11,698 EWP participants in 2008, and 5636 in a 2009 follow-up, confirmed previous research on the association between the sleep disorders

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

New WHS legislation takes effect January
Are you ready?

National

As of January brand new WHS legislation will be brought in across Australia. As flagged by the Federal Government in October, employers are no longer required to obtain AS/NZS 4801:2001 certification before tendering for Commonwealth construction projects.

Employment Minister Eric Abetz said at the time that this and other changes to the Australian Government Building and Construction OHS Accreditation Scheme, including extending the maximum accreditation period from three to six years for “consistent high performers”, will free up the Federal Safety Commissioner to target

What are Contractors WHS Responsibilities

For many organisations, working with contractors and subcontractors is part and parcel of daily life. More and more organisations are seeking the services of specialist contractors to assist them with  projects or simply day-to-day maintenance tasks. This can make life easier for everyone in many respects, but it can also create a number of issues when it comes to managing work health and safety. Therefore understanding contractors WHS responsibilities can make everyones job easier.

What does the law say about contractors?

For certain construction work over $250,000, the model