07:21 am, Friday 31 October, 2008

A Birregurra man was sentenced to three months in jail yesterday for fraudulently obtaining more than $7,600 in workers compensation payments and for providing false information.

The Geelong Magistrates Court heard that in 2000 Luke Voskresensky injured his lower back while working as a labourer with a meat packing company. He submitted a workers compensation claim which was accepted.

Mr Voskresensky’s injury required him to travel to a chemist in Camperdown to collect his medication. As he lived in Birregurra he claimed travel expenses to and from the chemist.

Evidence revealed, however, that Mr Voskresensky claimed for travel expenses on days which he did not attend the chemist. He also claimed for travel expenses on days when he was in jail serving a sentence for another matter. A total of 82 invoices which contained false and misleading information were submitted for reimbursement.

Mr Voskresensky pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulently obtaining payments and one count of providing false information under the Accident Compensation Act 1985.

He was convicted and sentenced to three months jail. He was also ordered to repay the $7,621 he had obtained fraudulently.

WorkSafe Executive Director, Len Boehm, said one of the important reasons the WorkSafe scheme existed was to protect workers who suffered a workplace injury.

“This sort of fraudulent behaviour attempts to take advantage of a system that is set up to provide support for people who are unable to work due to a workplace injury,” said Mr Boehm.

“Mr Voskeresnky submitted 82 false invoices, which shows he knew exactly what he was doing.”

“We will identify and prosecute those who deceive the system, in order to protect honest workers, employers, and service providers.

OHS News Tip: Workplace Safe Work Method Statements

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07:29 am, Thursday 30 October, 2008

Source: Canberra Times

The collapse at a multi-storey building site in Civic on Monday will be used as a test case in ensuring safety for members of Australia’s largest construction union.

But the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union’s national health and safety expert, Martin Kingham, said he was denied access to the site yesterday morning on the grounds that he was not accredited under the Workplace Relations Act because he was not from the ACT.

Part of a building collapsed on the construction site on the corner of Alinga and Marcus Clarke streets about noon on Monday. Emergency crews said it was lucky none of the 139 site workers had been killed or injured.

In the wake of the collapse, the union has called for an audit of all formwork construction sites, in Canberra and throughout the country, and has brought in Mr Kingham, regarded as the union’s foremost expert on all occupational health and safety issues.

He said yesterday the union needed to investigate the site to find out what went wrong so that all building companies could avoid similar disasters in the future.

But he said the provisions of the Act stipulating that only some union officials had specific statutory rights to access building sites hindered the work of the union in ensuring safe workplaces.

”It’s a lot more instructive if we can say that on this job, there was a failure of this particular type of component, of this particular type of equipment, and pay some special attention to that,” he said.

”That’s what we do in this industry. If there’s a near miss, or someone is injured or killed, we try to find out why, as quickly as possible, to share that information with the whole construction family to ensure that other people don’t suffer the same risk.”

He said Leighton Contractors had been ”obstructive” to the union in Canberra.

”It once again shows how [the Act] is so wrong if companies can use it to block workers’ representatives from getting on to the site to do something as basic as have a look at why a building came down, get the information from WorkCover and the employer so we can share that with our members and assist in the process of getting the job made safe and getting the workers back on the site,” he said.

But a spokeswoman for Leighton Contractors told The Canberra Times that an accredited union representative from the ACT had already been granted access to the site for the purposes of carrying out a safety investigation for Work-Cover. ”We don’t want to get into a fight with CFMEU,” she said. ”But from our perspective, it is a matter of relevance that an ACT representative of the union has been given access.”

The union’s ACT branch secretary, Sarah Schoonwater, said it was also trying to expedite the process of getting workers back on site amid complaints they were not being paid after the collapse.

”There are workers who are not being paid on the job. Leighton’s have denied this but we’ve had plenty of workers complain to us that they’re not being paid.”

The spokeswoman for Leighton Contractors confirmed that all the company’s employees were still being paid, and that most sub-contractors had either been relocated to other jobs or were still being paid while the investigation continued.

OHS News Tip: Workplace Safe Work Method Statement

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07:34 am, Wednesday 29 October, 2008

A worker has died after being crushed between a stationary light vehicle and a mobile tool carrier.

The service crew operator was standing near the vehicle, preparing to transfer tools from the vehicle to a man basket attached to the tool carrier. The mobile carrier failed to stop in time, crushing the operator against the vehicle.

According to the QLD Mines Inspectorate, it is common for workers in mining operations to be on foot around moving equipment, which adds to the danger of people being hit, caught or crushed by the equipment.

The risk of injury is increased if there is no line of communication between the equipment operator and the pedestrian, if pedestrians enter an area of operation without notification, or if the pedestrian is positioned in the path of the equipment.

The Inspectorate recommends all mines have clear rules governing the interaction of mobile equipment and pedestrians, including who has right of way.

OHS News Tip: Transport Industry Safe Work Method Statement

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07:30 am, Wednesday 29 October, 2008

Source: NineMSN News

A 28-year-old machinist has been killed after being dragged into a coal conveyer at an engineering complex in Sydney’s south west.

The Elderslie man suffered severe head injuries when he was pulled into the coal loading machine at the Narellan factory in Graham Hill Road just after 8am (AEST) on Friday.

He was working with two other men on the conveyor section of the machine at the engineering complex, according to police.

A WorkCover spokeswoman said from preliminary information it appeared a worker had been undertaking maintenance when a chain broke, the Camden Advertiser reported.

Paramedics who were called to the site were unable to revive him.

Police and WorkCover officers are investigating the incident.

OHS News Tip: Engineering Safe Work Method Statements

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07:27 am, Wednesday 29 October, 2008

ACT WorkCover is investigating the collapse of part of a floor of a building under construction during a concrete pour.

The incident occurred in Canberra on Monday and resulted in equipment and scaffolding crashing downwards.

No one was injured, however WorkCover closed the site for a full safety inspection.

The company in charge of the site says it has employed trauma counsellors for the 139 workers working on the project.

The CFMEU said the incident was an indication of a catastrophic failure of the formwork.

OHS News Tip: Concrete Preparation & Laying Safe Work Method Statement

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07:20 am, Wednesday 29 October, 2008

Source: ABC News

The Australian Workers Union (AWU) says an accident at the Ballarat gold mine on Wednesday is proof the industry needs tougher regulations.

Four workers inside the mine, in central Victoria, were injured on Wednesday evening when a winch cable attached to platform holding materials snapped.

The men were take to the Ballarat hospital, one with a cracked rib, another with an ankle injury.

The state secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Cesar Melhem, says it has been trying to gain access to the mine for 18 months.

“We need to move to tougher regulations and make sure that this sort of incident is being avoided in the future,” he said.

WorkSafe Victoria has issued the mine an improvement notice, which it has one week to comply with.

It says investigators will return to the site today.

OHS News Tip: Mining Industry Safe Work Method Statements

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07:24 am, Tuesday 28 October, 2008

Progress has been delayed on WorkHealth, the State Government’s preventive health program.

WorkHealth is a $218 million innitiative which was announced by Premier John Brumby in March of this year. It was lauded by health industry experts as visionary and a world-first.

The program involves health checks, lifestyle programs and health advice for 2.6 million Victorian workers over the next five years.

Mr Brumby said in March that WorkHealth would commence in July.  However, thus far, progress has been limited to a small pilot project that has administered health checks to a mere 200 workers.

Key elements of the program appear to have been abandoned, including an initial “tick test” screening process.  The proposed $130 million worth of prevention programs are not in the pilot at all.

Debate continues over what health checks should be included.  A change has been requested by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, namely that the WorkHealth checklist include questions on workplace practices that affect the health of workers, such as hours, shifts, conditions and facilities. This has been opposed by the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which is threatening to withdraw its support for the program, claiming it is being used as an “industrial weapon”.

OHS News Tip: Workplace Safe Work Method Statement

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07:18 am, Tuesday 28 October, 2008

A RiverCat ferry master has been convicted of negligent navigation and fined $1100 for crashing his vessell into a fishing boat which resulted in the death of a 72 year old fisherman.

The incident occurred on Sydney Harbour, just off The Rocks, in January last year.

The ferry master was steering the RiverCat Dawn Fraser when it hit a dinghy just off The Rocks.

A District Court Judge found that the ferry driver should have slowed his speed from 20 knots as he entered one of the busiest parts of the harbour.

“It was both practicable and prudent and reasonable to reduce speed, given the difficulties under which he was operating, and he did not do it,” the judge said.

“That seems to me to be enough to establish that he did depart from the standards of reasonableness required.”

OHS News Tip: Transport Industry Safe Work Method Statement

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07:22 am, Monday 27 October, 2008

Source: Adelaide Now

Injured workers are uniting under a new peak body to fight the controversial WorkCover reforms, saying they have been “bullied” for too long.

And the group’s spokeswoman has vowed to help people return to work quicker, accusing the WorkCover system of “breaking” injured workers.

The body – which has the working name of Encompass – will provide counselling, support and advice to injured workers and families of people killed at work.

Encompass spokeswoman and injured worker Rosemary McKenzie-Ferguson said changes to WorkCover meant people injured at work must stand united.

“The one thing we know more than anyone else is that when you’re forced into isolation, which the system does, you start to doubt your own injuries,” she said.

“(The group) has been a long time in the making but with the change of legislation . . . it has formalised it to the point that we have to do something.

“We can’t rely on the system to fix the system because it’s the system itself that is broken and injured workers are being even more broken because of it.

“With the formation of this body, we intend to be a voice to be heard . . . this is the first time this has actually been attempted in Australia.”

In June, the State Government rammed through changes to the WorkCover scheme – including cutting workers’ entitlements – in a bid to rein in ballooning unfunded liabilities nudging $1 billion.

Ms McKenzie-Ferguson – who runs advocacy group the Work Injured Resource Connection Office – said the lobby group would provide social workers, community advocates and possibly financial counsellors to help injured workers.

She said the group – which already has about 200 members – would also write to Industrial Relations Minister Paul Caica to seek an “observational seat” at WorkCover board meetings.

“We are quite serious in what we are doing because, quite frankly, injured workers have been pushed and bullied for far too long,” she said.

“Nobody sits down and explains to them what the (WorkCover) process is and what’s actually involved in returning to work.

“What we will be doing is hand-holding until they understand those processes and encouraging them in their own return-to-work plans. The problem now is employers simply don’t know if they can trust the work ethic of an injured employee so our goal is to try and break down those barriers.”

She said Encompass had secured office space through an “industry heavyweight” but would apply for money through WorkCover’s $15 million return-to-work fund, which was established as part of the State Government’s review of the workers compensation system.

WorkCover is offering one-off payments to any group that can devise strategies to get people back into the workforce.

“We hope the minister will be supportive and the corporation will be supportive,” Ms McKenzie-Ferguson said.

An inaugural public meeting of Encompass is scheduled for December.

OHS News Tip: Workplace Health and Safety Safe Work Method Statement

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07:30 am, Thursday 23 October, 2008

WorkSafe Victoria is investigating an incident where a concreter fell into an elevator pit at Tullamarine Airport.

He was rescued by paramedics after falling from ground level into the 1.7-metre pit.

The worker suffered severe head injuries.

Intensive care paramedic Alan Penaluna said, “The lift-well, being under construction, was very dark and dirty and the environment was very cramped with all the construction material in there.”

OHS News Tip: Confined Spaces Safe Work Method Statement

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