Employer fined $650k over “inevitable” fatal fall

An employer has been fined $650,000 after a worker died in a 12-metre fall from a platform that was completely unsuitable for purpose, making the fall almost inevitable. Meanwhile, a head contractor has entered a $175,000 safety undertaking after a worker was impaled on an obviously hazardous bar.

Victorian formwork company Concorp Group Pty Ltd (in liquidation) was convicted and fined in the County Court for breaching its health and safety duty, under section 21 of the State OHS Act, to a labour-hire worker – a deemed employee under the Act.

In February 2016, the labourer was inside a riser shaft on the fourth floor of a multi-level apartment construction site drilling holes when the wooden platform he was on tipped under his weight and he fell to his death.

The Court heard the platform was constructed two days before the incident, and it was nailed to the wall and supported by two beams. One of the labourers who built it warned the site foreman tools could fall from it onto workers, and the platform was boarded up.

However, workers weren’t instructed not to work on the platform and on the day of the incident the plywood blocking the entrance was removed by unknown parties.

An engineer engaged by WorkSafe Victoria found the platform was completely unsuitable for purpose and the likelihood of an incident occurring was almost inevitable, the Court heard.

The engineer found it would have been reasonably practicable for Concorp to: have used a site engineer to design the work platform; reduce its size to eliminate the cantilever zone; or add an additional support beam and extend the platform to the width of the shaft.

Concorp didn’t appear in the Court and was deemed to have pleaded not guilty, before being found guilty and fined $650,000.

Employer to roll out subcontractor program in lieu of prosecution
In the second case, also in Victoria, WorkSafe withdrew charges against Probuild Constructions (Aust) Pty Ltd after accepting an enforceable undertaking from the company, which included developing a subcontractor safety culture program to target unsafe behaviours throughout the “subcontractor lifecycle”, from pre-tender to job completion.

In August 2016, at a shopping centre development where Probuild was head contractor, a subcontractor’s employee was installing glass panels on the roof when he lost his footing stepping backwards and fell onto open-ended scaffolding uprights.

The worker was impaled and sustained significant injuries, and Probuild was charged with breaching section 23 of the OHS Act, in failing to ensure persons other than employees were not exposed to health and safety risks so far as was reasonably practicable.

WorkSafe found it would have been reasonably practicable for Probuild to raise the height of the uprights above the level workers were working at or fit plastic caps on the ends of the uprights.

According to the EU document, Probuild committed $100,000 to developing and delivering the safety culture program for subcontractors, which was unique to the construction industry and in response to current demands for such resources in the sector.

The program aimed to target onsite behaviours that directly impacted health and safety and provide tools to empower individuals to challenge unhelpful safety attitudes, the document said.

Probuild also planned to develop a safety culture website for the construction industry, to help subcontractors build positive organisational safety cultures. The whole undertaking was expected to cost $175,000.

Probuild Constructions (Aust) Pty Ltd enforceable undertaking

Originally posted on OHS Alert