Does your business have documented safe work practices?

The decision made in case SafeWork NSW v JBS Australia Pty Ltd [2023] NSWDC 382 (19 September 2023) has demonstrated the need for businesses to ensure they have documented safe work practices in place to prevent serious risk of harm. Failure to have these documents has lead to a judge finding JBS guilty of WHS offences. The judge will be listing the matter for sentencing shortly.
 
In February 2020 at JBS’s feedlot in Caroona, NSW, an administrative worker was seriously injured when two 700kg hay bales from an unstable partially constructed stack of bales fell and trapped her.
 
The employer argued that the employee breached a work practice which was passed on through a buddy system. The judge said that without a documented safe work procedure for the task, it was not possible to determine what each worker was taught and whether it had become varied or deficient over time. In other words, JBS could not have known the exact content of any worker's training on the practice.