OHS Incidents

05/03/2013
Concrete pour stopped over safety concerns

A concrete pour in Mitchell, ACT was stopped by WorkSafe ACT over safety concerns on Monday 25 February.

  • Download the CFMEU flyer with a report and photos of safety issues on the site.
05/02/2013
Euro Parliament adopts asbestos Report

On 23 January 2013, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of the European Parliament adopted a report, with similar findings to the Asbestos Management Review in Australia. The European report calls for:

31/01/2013
VIC workers injured by excavation wall collapse - update

The company undertaking the sub-works, basement and walls on the Hawthorn building site where two workers were injured on January 30 is GeoTech Engineering Pty Ltd.

An investigation by the CFMEU VIC Occupational Health, Safety and Environment Unit revealed unsupported sheer walls of up to approximately 4 metres in some of the areas where workers were working.

The incident occurred when part of an unsupported excavated wall sheared off, with part of the rubble collapsing onto the two workers.

28/08/2012
Harnesses saved lives

The lives of two Canadian workers working from a suspended platform in June were saved by their harnesses and lanyards, when one of the cables to the platform gave way.

27/03/2012
Two NSW workers killed

The CFMEU is deeply dismayed to have to announce two more deaths on construction sites, this time in NSW.

A 54-year-old Green Valley worker has been killed this morning, March 27,  in a fall from scaffold at a site on the corner of Pitt and Campbell Street in Sydney’s CBD.

On Thursday, March 22, a 17-year-old was suffered severe head injuries on an Edmonson Park job in Sydney’s south-west on Thursday March 22.  He later died in Liverpool Hospital.  It is understood that the worker was hit by a falling excavator bucket.

23/03/2012
$170,000 fine for Prahan scaffold collapse

A company which pleaded guilty to two workplace safety charges which led to the collapse of a scaffold in Prahran in 2009 has been convicted and fined $170,000.

In sentencing Asian Pacific Building Corporation Pty Ltd today, Magistrate Jan Maclean found the structure was overloaded with bricks and that the design was changed without reference to the designers or a qualified engineer.

21/03/2012
Another QLD worker killed

The CFMEU regrets to inform members that there has been another tragic fatality on a Queensland construction site, the fourth this year.

The CFMEU’s QLD Branches report that a  44-year old operator was struck by a toppling excavator in the Port of Brisbane and fatally injured on Tuesday March 20.

Initial union investigations of the incident point to the worker having been killed while operating a telehandler, which had been assisting a large excavator.

01/03/2012
Electrocution fatality Clermont QLD

CFMEU QLD & NT regrets to announce that three workers have been tragically killed on the job in Queensland in less than a week.

A 20-year-old labourer on a site at Clermont in western Queensland on Monday February 27.

CFMEU QLD &NT understands from Workplace Health and Safety QLD that the deceased worker was working on a unit construction site in Clermont when the incident occurred.

28/02/2012
Basic safety failings created chain of events that cost apprentice’s eye

A roof tiling company’s failure to install fall protection on a Rowville house resulted in an apprentice falling 2.4 metres to the ground and a fine representing one third of its annual profit.

02/02/2012
More safety incidents shut Cotter Dam Extension

WorkSafe ACT has issued another stop work order for part of the Cotter Dam Extension Project in Canberra because of two further safety incidents at the site. Cotter Dam ACT

In one incident, a crane cable was severed while the power was on. In the second, a bolt came off a lower section of a crane, compromising its entire structure.