Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ) recently launched a state-wide compliance blitz to reduce serious workplace incidents in the construction industry.
As part of the program, WHSQ inspectors will be targeting construction sites across Queensland between July and September 2024.
Workplace data indicates significant injuries occur in the construction industry when working at height, and that there are high levels of non-compliance relating to scaffold and working near overhead powerlines. These areas will be the focus of the construction compliance campaign.
The compliance blitz includes an awareness phase where WHSQ will provide construction businesses with information and tools to educate and assist in compliance with WHS legislation.
Following that phase WHS inspectors will assess if workplaces are compliant with the work health and safety laws and take necessary enforcement action when non-compliance is detected.
The compliance program follows a number of incidents on construction sites in recent times, including one in which a worker was injured after falling from height at a construction site. Initial enquiries indicated that the worker was descending from an upper floor under construction using a ladder, when the worker fell to the concrete floor below.
In another incident, a worker suffered injuries as a result of falling from a roof.
Falls from ladders have resulted in a significant number of serious and fatal injuries, even when working at relatively low heights, according to a safety alert that was subsequently issued by WHSQ.
While ladders are often considered to be the first option when working at heights, the regulator said they should only be considered after safer alternatives have been considered first and found to be not reasonably practicable.
The regulator said there have also been two crushing incidents in the construction sector, where sliding gates have fallen and resulted in serious or fatal injuries.
In the incidents, the end stop failed and did not prevent the gate from travelling past the upright support (support post and guides), allowing it to fall.
In a resulting safety alert, the regulator said any sliding gate that is manually operated has the potential to apply extremely high forces to the end stop unless the end stop is designed to absorb shock loading.
“The greater the mass and/or travel speed of any given gate, the greater the force it can apply to its end stops. If a gate moves through (past) its end stop and begins to suddenly move or fall towards someone close by, there is often limited opportunity to avoid being struck,” the alert said.
Automatic sliding gates, powered by an electric motor, can be operated as a manual sliding gate and will be operated this way in the event of a power supply outage.
In addition, automatic gates are often operated as manual gates when there is a breakdown in the drive system.
“For this reason, the risk control measures to prevent gates falling over should be similar for both manual and automatic sliding gates,” the alert said.