VICTORIA?S workplace safety watchdog has quietly shifted its prosecuting focus away from small and medium-sized companies ? where most workplace deaths and serious injuries occur! ? to large businesses. WorkSafe?s shift has taken big industry by surprise and infuriated unions, which believe the move will send a poor message to small and medium-sized businesses. The Australian Industry Group?s Victorian branch director, Tim Piper, said the same rigour should be applied to all businesses
The shift comes as WorkSafe?s successful prosecutions have dipped to 100 from a record high of 134 three years ago. Total fines against errant companies in the same period were $1.7 million down.
Only one in two WorkSafe investigations last financial year led to a prosecution or enforcement, the lowest rate in at least four years.
Unions, grieving families and workplace safety experts fear a growing timidity in WorkSafe?s approach to prosecution after an overhaul of its legal team in 2010 saw the organisation lose experienced occupational health and safety lawyers.
Sources within WorkSafe say the body needs better-quality investigators.
Louisa Giandinoto, who lost her father in a workplace accident, yesterday spent Father?s Day visiting his grave. She believes WorkSafe let her family down by not prosecuting the owner-builder from whose house roof John Giandinoto fell two years ago.
She understands her father shared responsibility for safety, but says he had little control over the site?s overall safety.
Amid their grief, Mr Giandinoto?s wife and daughters did not order an autopsy. So WorkSafe, which told The Age it had conducted a comprehensive investigation, told the family there was no evidence that he fell because of a safety issue ? it could have been a heart attack.
?He lost his life because of an unsafe site,? said Ms Giandinoto, 32. ?I feel that the owner-builder should still have responsibility for that. Unfortunately people take shortcuts to get the work done. No one thinks of the consequences or the loss that grieving families are left to deal with.?
A senior source within WorkSafe told The Age: ?We are scared to do the job, we are so risk averse. We are unable to do the job the way we did it a few years ago.?
In a statement to The Age, WorkSafe publicly revealed its new focus on larger companies. A spokesman said WorkSafe was now taking on ?larger, better-resourced businesses who have breached the law?.
WorkSafe sources say they believe big fines against large firms will send a strong message to all companies. Larger firms have no excuse to skimp on workplace safety, they say.
WorkSafe?s own figures show the highest rates of serious-injury claims are in medium-sized businesses that employ between 100 to 500 people and smaller businesses that employ between 20 and 100 people.
On injury rates Victoria has the safest workplaces in the country, but fatalities at work jumped last financial year to 24, a 25 per cent increase from the previous year.
WorkSafe?s shift has taken big industry by surprise and infuriated unions, which believe the move will send a poor message to small and medium-sized businesses. The Australian Industry Group?s Victorian branch director, Tim Piper, said the same rigour should be applied to all businesses.
Steve Dargavel, the Victorian secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, said the shift was outrageous and came on top of an increasingly risk-averse approach to prosecution. ?There are an awful lot of workers being killed and maimed for life in small to medium enterprises.?
Frank Cosentino spent Father?s Day without his son Joey, who died last year when his van blew up in a gas explosion. Mr Cosentino is still waiting on WorkSafe to decide whether to prosecute, almost nine months after the accident. Joey worked as a refrigerator mechanic for a small business.
?This is all about keeping people safe. When you lose a life, it doesn?t matter if they are going to work for a small business or a large business. They should be safe,? he said.
An Age analysis of WorkSafe?s prosecution rate revealed the organisation has been double-counting successful prosecutions. WorkSafe includes committals in its list of successful prosecutions, even though a person or company may be cleared at trial. Because of lags in the justice system, this also means Worksafe has been counting a committal to trial one year, then the result at trial the next year, thereby counting the one prosecution twice.
It also counts enforceable undertakings ? such as agreements by companies to improve safety equipment ? even when all charges have been withdrawn by WorkSafe and no prosecution has occurred.
When taking committals and enforceable undertakings out of its figures, WorkSafe actually conducted only 90 successful prosecutions last year, despite its target of 150. That was up from 64 in the year 2010-11 (compared to its official figure of 76) but down from 116 in 2009-10 (Worksafe?s figure: 134).
Labor?s spokesman for WorkSafe, Robin Scott, called on the minister, Gordon Rich-Phillips, to make WorkSafe give a clear explanation of its prosecution rates.
Phillip Priest, QC, an experienced occupational health and safety law barrister in prosecution and defence, said WorkSafe?s attitude to prosecution had changed for the better.
?They will not prosecute a case unless there?s evidence to support it,? he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/safety-watchdog-just-wants-to-chase-the-big-boys-20120902-258k7.html#ixzz25N2lZHJb
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