01:35 pm, Thursday 31 January, 2013

A boat company located in the northern suburbs of Melbourne has been fined $275,000 after a worker died at their site in December 2011.

The company was convicted last Friday on charges that related to the death of an independent contractor during a hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

The boat company makes, services and sells boats an they were found guilty of failing to provide information, instruction, training or supervision in relation to overhead obstructions and risk controls.

The incident occurred on the 1^st December 2011. The worker that died had requested assistance from a colleague to access a part with a forklift as the colleague was licensed to perform high-risk work.

When the forklift was reversed the mast became tangled with the chain of a crane and pulled a hoist unit and chain off the gantry. These fell and hit the other worker of the head.

Workers at the site administered first aid but he died soon after reaching the Alfred Hospital.

The court heard that a risk assessment that identified the hazards and identified specific obstacles and overhead obstructions should have been undertaken at the worksite.

Also information, instruction and training should have been given to all workers and others at the workplace that outlined the overhead obstructions and risk controls.

Lisa Sturzenegger, the WorkSafe General Manager of Health and Safety, said that this accident emphasised the need for workplaces to continue to identify hazards and risk assessments.

The company was convicted last Friday on charges that related to the death of an independent contractor during a hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

The boat company makes, services and sells boats an they were found guilty of failing to provide information, instruction, training or supervision in relation to overhead obstructions and risk controls.

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10:36 am, Friday 6 July, 2012

WorkCover reminded businesses across New South Wales to stay vigilant about workplace safety following a spate of incidents in the past week.

General Manager of WorkCover’s Work Health and Safety Division, John Watson, said there were two fatalities involving forklifts, death of a grain farmer and two serious falls where workers involved are critically injured.

“A 48-year-old man fell around four metres from the roof of a construction site in Canley Heights earlier today while on Monday, a 26-year-old plumber was critically injured when he fell around eight metres from a skylight to a concrete floor in a Byron Bay warehouse,” said Mr Watson.

“Yesterday a 39-year-old worker received fatal crush injuries while unloading steel beams from a forklift in a manufacturing plant in Tamworth.”

A 40-year-old man was killed at Flemington Markets in Sydney when a forklift he was operating rolled on top of him. A 62-year-old man also died after being trapped in a grain auger on a property near Albury.

“These tragic events serve as a stern reminder that there is no room for complacency when it comes to workplace safety,” said Mr Watson.

“It is paramount to assess risks and develop safe work methods to reduce the possibility of an incident occurring.

“WorkCover provides a range of free services and guidance material to help businesses achieve the best possible safety outcomes.”

Investigations are being conducted over these incidents.

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07:14 pm, Wednesday 30 May, 2012

A food distribution business in Adelaide was fined $73,000 over a forklift accident which seriously injured a worker.

The worker sustained serious injuries in 2009 when a forklift he was driving tipped over as it struck a loose metal grate. ABC news reports that the worker was trapped under the forklift and suffered leg injuries, which resulted to his confinement to a wheelchair.

The Industrial Court heard that the worker who was the company’s first aid officer coordinated his own rescue by instructing staff on how to free him.

The company pleaded guilty to violating workplace safety laws. The court heard that they provided support to the victim during his rehabilitation. Industrial Magistrate Stephen Lieschke who said the offence was very serious imposed the fine.

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06:39 am, Saturday 3 September, 2011

Emergency services were called to the Patrick container terminal at Port Botany yesterday morning.

Paramedics say one man was discovered dead at the scene and another person was taken to St George Hospital with serious abdominal injuries.

The incident is believed to have involved a forklift, paramedics said, but no more information was immediately available.

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05:46 pm, Thursday 30 June, 2011

Two Sydney based manufacturing companies and a manager have been fined a total of $193,000 after three workers were seriously injured in 2007.

The two companies, which manufacture cardboard boxes, operated out of the same facility in Ingleburn.

They were charged with breaching the Occupational Health & Safety Act 2000 resulting from an incident where a one-tonne pallet toppled onto three workers.

On 21 December 2007, a pallet of cardboard boxing tipped onto an employee who was operating a forklift on site.

The forklift driver started to clean up the fallen sheeting with the assistance of two other employees, when further pallets weighing more than a tonne fell onto the three men.

One of the workers suffered a fractured spine, a dislocated and fractured right elbow, cuts to his head requiring stitches and general cuts and abrasions. He was unfit for work for two months as a result his injuries.

The other two workers sustained soft tissue injuries, lower back muscle strain, and general cuts and abrasions.

A WorkCover investigation found that the safety conditions at the dual-facility were unsafe and that an incident of this type was predictable and preventable.

The investigation found the companies had:

• Failed to have safe work practices in place for employees moving and/or storing cardboard boxes
• Failed to carry out a risk assessment
• Failed to provide instruction, training and information to employees
• Failed to provide adequate supervision
• Failed to inform employees of the risks of carrying out moving tasks incorrectly
• Failed to have pedestrian exclusion zones and/or physical barriers around stored stacks of cardboard boxes so as to ensure those boxes could not fall on employees.

The court fined the two companies $130,000 and $60,000 respectively. The Operations Manager was also fined $3200. All three were ordered to pay WorkCover’s legal costs.

“This incident highlights the need for safe stacking and storage systems, particularly where heavy materials are stored at height,”  said John Watson, WorkCover NSW’s General Manager of Work Health and Safety Division.

“Staff should always be appropriately inducted and trained in the safe work practices.

“Forklifts can be dangerous if not operated by properly trained people and proper controls should always be in place to isolate personnel from areas where forklifts are in operation,” Watson said.

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12:48 pm, Friday 13 May, 2011

A Perth employer and a labour hire company have been fined a total of $120,000 after a man lost his leg while operating a forklift in 2008.

The man, from the United Kingdom, was on a working holiday and was one of two men employed by a labour hire company and contracted to a bed store store in Kewdale.

After placing a pallet on a top shelf within a warehouse, he did not lower the forks and mast of the forklift before driving towards an open roller door.

The mast struck the roller door and began to tip over.

The man attempted to jump from the falling forklift but his right leg became trapped.

A second forklift had to be used to lift the fallen forklift from the man’s leg but the limb was so severely injured it had to be amputated below the knee.

WorkSafe said the man had no experience or qualification to use the machinery and had been given only a short lesson by a supervisor.

Both companies pleaded guilty last week to failing to ensure the provision of a safe workplace under a labour hire arrangement.

The employer was fined $80,000 and the labour hire company was fined $40,000.

An average 180 West Australian workers were injured in incidents involving forklifts each year and five WA workers had died in forklift-related incidents since 2004.

Acting WorkSafe WA Commissioner Lex McCulloch said the case should serve as a reminder that both labour hire companies and host employers were responsible for ensuring a safe workplace.

“In this case, neither the labour hire company nor the host employer fulfilled their obligation to ensure as far as was reasonably practicable that the host workplace was safe for the workers sent to it,” Mr McCulloch said.

“Although a [labour hire company] manager visited the workplace on a weekly basis, almost no effort was made to ensure workers were performing only the duties in their job descriptions, to communicate about changes of duties or to undertake hazard and risk assessments.

“It is apparent that the worker was not given sufficient training and instruction on how to operate a forklift, an item of plant that requires operators to obtain a High Risk Work licence.

“High Risk Work licences have been introduced for a good reason and that is to ensure that the people undertaking that work are trained to perform it in a safe manner for everyone concerned.”

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08:09 am, Friday 5 November, 2010

A warehousing employee has been fined after putting three of his colleagues at risk, with one suffering a hand injury.

The Perth Magistrates Court fined the regional manager of the Osborne Park company $2000 after admitting his failure to take reasonable care to avoid adversely affecting the safety and health of three other employees.

The court was told that on October 2008, the manager was engaged in unloading from a truck an oversized pallet of stock with a pedestrian-operated forklift.

When the pallet was raised, the forklift’s rear wheel tipped forward, indicating it was overloaded.

The manager told three workers to stand on top of the forklift’s counterweight. One balanced himself onto the support bar of forklift’s mast with his left hand.

When the manager lowered the pallet, the mast also descended. This caused the worker’s hand who was holding the mast to be crushed.

According to WorkSafe WA Commissioner Nina Lyhne, the incident serves as a reminder that safe systems of work must be in place and that manufacturer’s instructions must be followed when operating forklifts.

“In this case, it was obvious that the load being moved exceeded the capacity of the forklift, and a safe alternative method should have been sought,” Ms Lyhne said.

“Most people would think instructing three people to stand on the counterweight to balance up the weight is not a smart thing to do. All three workers were put at risk of injury, and one did indeed sustain a serious hand injury.

“This case also illustrates the fact that it is not only employers who have a duty of care – workers also have a responsibility to look after their own safety and health and to ensure they do not adversely affect the safety and health of others in the workplace.”

Ms Lyhne said the regional manager should have known better than to place workers in a dangerous scenario and overloading a forklift.

“Comprehensive guidance material is available for working safely with forklifts, and I urge anyone with a business that includes forklifts to ensure that this Guidance Note is made available in their workplaces.”

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04:42 pm, Thursday 28 October, 2010

New figures show that 743 injuries were reported in Brimbank in the last financial year.

WorkSafe Victoria mentions construction, community services, trades, manufacturing, and storage/transport as the five industries with the most compensation claims. Among age groups, workers aged 45-49 years old had recorded the highest number of incidents.

Figures show musculoskeletal disorders, open wounds, stress fractures, and contusion or crushing are the most common injuries.

WorkSafe deputy CEO Ian Forsyth said 3695 compensation claims were made over the last five years, costing Brimbank businesses over $78million in claims.

WorkSafe Week, which is currently ongoing, encourages companies to keep workplaces safe.

Robert Buick, a general manager of a local business, said he is attending the events slated for WorkSafe Week with the hopes of learning more about manual handling, and slips and trips.

“We want to bring back some tips on new areas on manual handling and avoiding hazards in the workplace,” he said.

His company, which has pallet jacks and forklifts at its worksite, has not had any serious workplace injuries. However, Mr Buick recognises accidents can potentially happen.

“Safety is a big deal for us; we take it very seriously.”

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08:45 am, Wednesday 20 October, 2010

The Brisbane Industrial Magistrates Court has fined a transport company after its manager and a truck driver of another company were hurt during unloading of a truck trailer.

The defendant pleaded guilty to breaching s.24(1) of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995. It was fined $34 000 and ordered to pay investigation and court costs of $1566.50.

On 11 March 2009, the 49-year-old manager was assisting the 64-year-old truck driver with the unloading of a 250-kg hydraulic ram when it shifted and moved.

As a result of the ram’s movement, the truck driver’s head became pinned against the mast of a forklift. The manager, who was able to jump out of the way, sustained wrist injuries in the process.

The court was told that defendant failed to implement measures that were sufficient to prevent such an incident. It also heard that the driver was exposed to risks of falling objects, and that the method for unloading was performed in a way that placed employees and other persons at risk.

According to the Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, an effective risk management should have been applied to ensure suitable control measures were enforced.

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08:40 am, Tuesday 19 October, 2010

Safety issues over plant and equipment remain a major concern for the agricultural industry, WorkSafe Victoria reveals.

WorkSafe inspectors have issued over 200 safety improvement notices to farm businesses from July to September as part of a year-long statewide farm safety campaign.

Now in its third month, the campaign focuses on the most common causes of farm injuries and fatalities.

According to WorkSafe’s Executive Director (Health and Safety) Ian Forsyth, over half of the safety notices issued were in connection with plant and equipment safety.

“One of our biggest concerns is the lack of guarding on power take-off (PTO) shafts which can turn at thousands of revolutions a minute,” said Mr Forsyth.

“A PTO guard is basically a life-saving device which protects you from getting caught up in the rotating parts which connect a tractor with an attachment like an auger or a slasher.

“If [you're] not using a PTO guard, you’re putting yourself and others at risk of being pulled into the rotating shaft by hair or clothing.

“Most farmers would have a good understanding of what a fast-rotating shaft looks like. You don’t need a lot of imagination to understand what happens when something goes wrong,” he said.

Mr Forsyth is expecting farmers to become busier in the coming months as the state is expecting a bumper crop.

“Things may have been a bit quieter for farmers over winter – now that the days are longer and farmers are gearing up for harvesting, the pressure is really on.

“Now is the time to get safety right. If you’ve been farming for decades, it’s time to start thinking the job through rather than just relying on your skills and experience.”

Aside from inadequate PTO guard, the safety inspections had uncovered a number of safety issues involving plant and equipment, including forklifts, chemical storage, fall hazards, electrical equipment, manual handling, quad bikes (helmets), silos, traffic management systems, and rollover protection on tractors.

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