Thursday 13th May 2021

WA building company fined over workers death. 

A building company has been fined in the Bunbury Magistrates Court, over the death of a contract worker in 2017 in the southwest town of Yarloop.

Of the five charges the company pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace which caused the worker's death was the most serious.

Not having an occupational health and safety management plan, not having safe work method statements on-site, workers not having high-risk work licenses and not wearing safety helmets were the other charges against them.

The company was building a house in March 2017 from imported precast aerated concrete panels, with a panel weighing between 750kg and 1.1 tonnes, which needed to be craned in position in a prescribed sequence.

A panel was craned from the open-air shipping container it had been delivered in but it was not the next panel in the construction sequence. It was leaned up against a row of five tree stumps unsecured and fell on the worker resulting in fatal injuries.

WorkSafe WA Commissioner Darren Kavanagh said the company failed to ensure that basic safety systems were in place, neglecting its duty of care which sadly led to a young man losing his life.

'A Safe Work Method Statement had been compiled, but it was not taken to the worksite, and it did not include the safety measures associated with working with precast concrete panels, the equipment to be used and so on, which made it pretty much useless for this job.'

The company was fined a total of $175,000.

Read the full article on Government of WA website.