A South Australian politician is pushing for tougher laws for fatal workplace negligence.
The industrial manslaughter bill seeks to introduce reforms to improve workplace safety in South Australia through corporate criminal responsibility. Employers who will cause the death of a worker because of negligence and indifference will be fined up to $1 million or jailed for a maximum of 20 years.
“The primary objective of this bill is to ensure that culpable employers are held responsible for their actions. This bill seeks to introduce industrial manslaughter. The offence covers the situation where an individual or corporation’s conduct causes the death of a worker, where that individual or corporation’s recklessness or negligence caused serious harm and obviously death to that worker,” said Greens MLC Tammy Franks.
Under the bill, an employer will be guilty of an offence if he or she breaches the duty of care, knew or was recklessly indifferent that the act or omission constituting the violation would result in a substantial risk of serious harm to a person, and if the breach resulted in death.
“This bill seeks to capture an absolutely tiny minority of employers who expose workers to unnecessary risk of harm. This bill will apply only where a worker dies as a result of the actions or omissions of that employer,” said Ms Franks.
Data from SafeWork SA shows that there were 10 workplace fatalities in 2011-12, 19 deaths in 2012-13, and 14 workplace fatalities for 2013-14. These figures show that 185 workers died at work in 2014, which translates to one death every two days.
The current legislation imposes penalty for employers of up to $3 million or jail time of up to 5 years.
“Clearly, there is an argument that we need safer workplaces and that we need to strengthen workplace laws. We need to set the highest bar for deterrence so that employers take seriously the work health and safety of their employees. I know that the majority of employers already do the right thing and that they follow occupational health and safety procedures, but we do know that we do have a small minority who do not,” said Ms Franks.
Author: Haydee
Source www.safetyculture.com.au
