Back for 2025! Safety dot-point Sunday No. 20

Power of Three.

Forklifts remain very dangerous workplace hazards as a consequence of their own utility.

As common pieces of mobile plant found in many workplaces; Forklifts are often the go-to option for many small to medium sized industrial lifting or handling tasks. This brings added risk as Forklifts are often used for tasks they’re not designed for. This factor was a contribution to an incident at Burnie Port (TAS), where the operator narrowly avoided significant or potentially fatal injuries when the Forklift being used went over the edge and into the harbour. Transport company pleads guilty, fined after near miss.

WA PCBU fined $350k for serious injuries to an apprentice and failing to report it.

The incident involved a 16-year-old apprentice performing small welding work. The worker was wearing PPE including a welding helmet, respirator, and welding gloves. Between welds the apprentice replaced a hi-vis hoddie they were wearing with a hi-vis tradie jacket that caught fire during the next weld.

WorkSafe Commissioner emphasised the requirement for all appropriate PPE and adequate training & supervision for young & new workers, commenting that “The 16-year-old involved in this incident should have been closely supervised given his young age and minimal experience and should have been provided with fire-retardant clothing and instructed to wear a welding apron,”. Additionally, the apprentice had not received a formal induction, not provided with any fire-retardant PPE even though this had been specified on the applicable welding JSA.

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VIC PCBU fined $50k after serious hand injury.

A worker was operating a machine which creates 90-degree bends in pipes, but which requires the operator to manually hold the pipe in place during the process. As the worker pressed the activation button with their other hand a vice trapped two of their fingers sustaining a serious injury.

Investigations found that there was no formal training procedure for the machine and the worker had been shown to use the machine by someone who had also not been trained but who operated via trial and error. Other findings included it was reasonably practicable for:

• employees were provided with applicable training, information & instruction for safe operation
• guarding to prevent bodily access to danger zones
• an interlock which would not allow process to proceed unless hand were clear

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