Campbellfield businesses targeted by WorkSafe
20 September 2010

Small businesses in Campbellfield will be visited by WorkSafe inspectors next month, as part of a campaign targeting the most common and preventable injuries.

Inspectors will be visiting Campbellfield businesses during the week of 11-15 October. Small businesses in the area were previously targeted in October 2009 – and inspectors want to find out whether employers have got the message on safety.

“We’re giving small businesses prior notice that we’re coming – this is done intentionally so they can sit down with workers, go through the potential safety issues, and work out what can be done to eliminate them,” Manufacturing and Logistics Director Ross Pilkington said.

“Once that’s done, we encourage workplaces to put a plan together and get to work putting it into effect.”

“It’s in everyone’s interest to do this sooner rather than later. Don’t adopt a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude or wait until a WorkSafe inspector arrives,” he said.

Mr Pilkington said the same health and safety issues come up again and again for small businesses.

“Time and time again, our inspectors issue notices for the same problems – and often they’re things which are cheap and easy to fix.”

“For example, inspectors regularly come across out-of-date first aid kits, overloaded or damaged racking and shelving, electrical cords with exposed wires, and cluttered work spaces.”

“We don’t want to be issuing notices to businesses for health and safety breaches – so our advice would be to sort out any health and safety issues before our inspectors knock on your door,” he said.

WorkSafe successfully prosecuted meat manufacturing company D R & J Fabbris Pty Ltd earlier this year, following an incident at a Campbellfield factory in 2008 where a worker’s hand was caught in a meat shredder.

The company was convicted and fined $75,000. Sole director Dino Fabbris was also fined $25,000 for his failure to arrange for the shredder to be guarded – despite working on the factory floor on a daily basis and taking managerial responsibility for the company’s two factories.

WorkSafe publishes a guide called ’12 ways to make small business safer’, which focuses on the top 12 common hazards identified by inspectors during visits. This is available on WorkSafe’s website: worksafe.vic.gov.au

 

Melton - Worksafe Inspections August 2010

Small businesses in Melton were pulled up on over 200 health and safety breaches during a five day campaign by WorkSafe inspectors in August.

Over coming weeks, inspectors will return to the area to check that the breaches have been remedied and improvement notices complied with.

WorkSafe visited 206 workplaces from 2 – 6 August, as part of WorkSafe’s ‘Safer Work Zones’ campaign, which aims to help small businesses identify basic safety issues.

Inspectors issued a total of 203 improvement notices, which required workplaces to make improvements on health and safety issues ranging from storage of dangerous goods to securing storage racking.

“Although we wrote to the businesses and told them we would be visiting, we still had to pull them up on high number of health and safety issues,” Manufacturing and Logistics Director Ross Pilkington said.

“If you're not talking to your staff about health and safety, it's eventually going to catch up with you. Losing workers to avoidable injuries can have a big impact on the productivity of a small business.

“It's in your best interests to fix the issues identified by our inspectors - and, of course, inspectors will be back to check that improvements have been made,” he said.

Mr Pilkington said inspectors noticed specific issues around forklift operations – these included operators not wearing seatbelts, keys being left in ignitions when the forklift was out of use, and operators’ certificates of competencies not being upgraded.

Other health and safety issues identified by inspectors included:

 

WorkSafe’s Return to Work Inspectorate also visited businesses, to check that duties under the Accident Compensation Act were being met. Five improvement notices were issued to businesses for failing to make required return to work information available.