Friday 14th May 2021

Engineering company fined for apartment block crane collapse.

In August 2017, three workers were injured at a construction site in Wolli Creek when a tower crane collapsed into a building.  A structural engineering company has pleaded guilty in the NSW District Court to breaching the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.

The company was engaged to design a large steel cantilevered grillage for supporting a tower crane. The three workers were in the final stages of the erection of the tower crane. They had installed a counterweight and were slewing 180 degrees to pin the jib when the right-hand corner of the grillage that the crane was sitting on gave way.

The three workers sustained injuries from jumping from the crane onto the apartment building's roof. After the incident, over 100 residents were evacuated for several days from surrounding buildings.

Investigations by SafeWork NSW found there was a foreseeable risk of collapse if the grillage was not adequate to support the fully erected tower crane.

The NSW District Court convicted the company and issued a $225,000 fine.

View the original article on the SafeWork NSW website.

Research finds preventing workplace mental health injuries can save billions. 

A new report from the Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work has found that with more robust prevention measures to reduce workplace-associated mental ill-health, there would be significant economic benefits.

As well as reducing the impact of mental health for workers and their families, the findings from the survey highlight the costs from mental ill-health, including reduced productivity, high employee turnover, absenteeism and workers compensation costs etc.

Total costs (including direct costs to victims and their families, as well as economic and fiscal costs) from workplace-associated mental illness is estimated at $15.8 billion to $17.4 billion per year.

Exposure to violence and trauma, bullying and harassment, long or irregular working hours and unreasonable job demands are all factors that can contribute to an unsafe work environment and lead to mental illness and injuries.

The director of the Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work, Dr Jim Stanford, said, 'Australia's system of work health and safety laws does not treat workplace mental injuries with the same rigour and oversight as physical injuries. This has to change.'

'We need explicit, enforceable requirements that compel employers to take mental health risks just as seriously as physical health and safety risks, and make every possible effort to remove those risks'.

Read the full article on the Australian Institute website.