Safety Alerts | General

Valley Sweep Pty Ltd and Anton Zakic had both pleaded guilty in the Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court to a single charge each under the Occupational Health and Safety Act of failing to provide and maintain safe plant.

On Friday, the company was fined $388,650 while Mr Zakic was fined $77,730, the maximum penalties available.

The court was told Valley Sweep had entered into a hire agreement to provide another company with a water cart truck and a driver in April 2017.

Less than a month later, the 21-year-old driver was killed when the truck rolled while travelling down a long, steep, curved section of road near the town of Noojee.

A forensic engineer engaged by WorkSafe concluded the poor condition of the truck's brakes, including being improperly adjusted, was the primary cause of the crash.

It was revealed the truck had last undergone a major inspection and servicing by an external mechanic in December 2015.

Mr Zakic and another Valley Sweep employee had performed some maintenance and repair work for the company's fleet of trucks and had worked on the water tanker, but neither were qualified mechanics.

The court also heard the driver had not received any formal training in the operation of water cart trucks, which have unique handling characteristics, or any supervised training in driving a water cart truck in difficult conditions such as a steep or curved descent.

WorkSafe Executive Director of Health and Safety Julie Nielsen said there was no excuse for the employer's behaviour.

"This company's director made a reckless decision to perform service and maintenance work on the water truck himself, even though he knew he wasn't qualified to do so," Ms Nielsen said.

"This failure to take reasonable care left a dangerous vehicle on the road and ultimately cost a young worker his life."

To manage risks employers should:

• Ensure appropriate safe systems of work are in place and that these are regularly monitored, reviewed and, if necessary, revised.
• Ensure regular vehicle inspections, servicing and maintenance are undertaken by suitably competent persons in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations.
• Ensure pre-operations checks are conducted daily on essential components such as brakes, steering, tyres (including pressure), indicators, oil leaks and suspension and have defects rectified by competent persons.
• Not allow untrained, unlicensed or inexperienced people to operate vehicles.
• Implement a system to ensure people are competent to conduct the work - this should include instructions, information about the work, mentoring and assessment, toolbox training and refresher training even for experienced employees.
• Establish appropriate rules and standards for safe road use (including speed limits for travel and manoeuvres) taking into account the load factor of a vehicle, movement of liquid and its effect on the stability of a vehicle, increased breaking distances due to the surge of liquid within a tank and changing environments and conditions.
• Communicate all safety information to drivers and others (eg load information for those responsible for loading and driving vehicles) to enable them to perform their work in a way that is safe and without risks to health.

A 34-year-old man was crushed while working on a tipper truck at his Lilydale home on Sunday.

It is believed the man was working on the chassis of the truck with the cargo bin raised when it fell on top of him.

On Friday, a 60-year-old farmer died after his tractor rolled on a property at Myrniong, near Bacchus Marsh.

It is believed the man was slashing on uneven ground when the incident occurred.

WorkSafe is investigating both incidents.

The fatalities bring the number of workplace deaths this year to 42, which is two more than at the same time last year.

Seascape Constructions Pty Ltd was sentenced in the Melbourne County Court at the beginning of August following the 2017 death of a carpenter at a two-storey house under construction in Kalkallo.

The company pleaded guilty to a single charge of failing to ensure that persons other than employees were not exposed to risks to their health and safety by failing to prepare and conduct work in accordance with a safe work method statement (SWMS).

Seascape engaged the carpenter and a handyman via the website Gumtree to work at the site, including to lay flooring.

The court heard the carpenter was lowering a compressed air nail gun by its air hose when he fell from an unprotected edge, landing on a concrete slab about 3.1 metres below.

The 68-year-old died of head injuries at the scene.

Falling through unguarded voids is a contributing factor to a number of serious injuries and deaths in the construction industry. In all three incidents, the workers were working near unguarded voids where there was a risk of a fall.

Any construction work that involves the risk of a person falling more than 2 metres is considered high-risk construction work under Regulation 291 of the Work Health and Safety (National Uniform Legislation) Regulations 2011.

When purchasing and installing plant and machinery from overseas suppliers, businesses must ensure all components comply with Australian Standards to ensure they are safe. Additionally, some items of plant and plant designs must be registered with SafeWork authorities before being used at a workplace.

A Melbourne-based precast concrete manufacturer has pleaded guilty to failing to maintain a safe system of work and failing to prepare a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) for high-risk construction work. 

WorkSafe's investigation found that concrete panels weighing nearly three tonnes each were standing vertically, without support and had been manufactured with only two lifting lugs, rather than the four required in the manufacturer's specifications. The panels were also being lifted by make-shift methods, rather than using lifting lugs that were called for in the design. WorkSafe Executive Director of Health and Safety Julie Nielsen said it was only sheer luck that the panels had not fallen on workers.

Read WorkSafe VIC's safety alert for tips to ensure workers' safety when storing concrete panels. 

SafeWork inspectors attended a Macquarie Park worksite on Monday, 1 April 2019, after receiving reports that two workers had become trapped under scaffolding. 

The tradesmen had been working from the bottom level of scaffolding when the structure suddenly collapsed. Another two workers were laying bricks at the top of the structure and jumped to safety. It is not yet known what caused the scaffolding to collapse, however, SafeWork will employ significant resources to fully understand how the tragedy occurred.

Service and Innovation and SafeWork regulator, Martin Hoffman, said SafeWork’s priority is workers returning home safely when they leave for work that day and believes better compliance and education around scaffolding will help to ensure that.

Keeping young workers safe and reducing potentially deadly falls at work sites is the focus of the latest Cross Border Construction Program blitz in the Albury Wodonga region.

WorkSafe Victoria and SafeWork NSW inspectors will visit construction sites on both sides of the border from March 25 to 29 to help keep them injury free.

The purpose of this safety alert is to inform workers, employers, builders and designers of the risk of sideways collapse of narrow concrete wall panels.

The purpose of this safety alert is to highlight the risks of hoist rope and brake failure on tower cranes. Employers, builders, workers and crane operators should apply the principles in this alert to any crane with a hoist rope. Planning is the first step in ensuring that work is done safely. For example;

• ensuring that each tower crane can be installed at an acceptable distance away from other tower cranes and concrete placement booms.
• ensuring the tower crane boom remains an appropriate distance above the concrete placement boom.
• consideration of proximity to overhead powerlines and appropriate control measures to prevent or minimise risks.

Read more in the safety alert and provided links to 'Tower crane code of practice 2017' and 'Mobile crane code of practice 2016'.