The Port Augusta Steel Centre Pty Ltd has been fined $200k for lack of “active” management

A Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) has been fined $134,000, and its two directors $33,000 each, for failing to comply with their basic obligations, after a young worker was pinned under 1.2 tonnes of steel sheets.

The Port Augusta Steel Centre Pty Ltd directors' absolute ignorance of their health and safety duties led to the business not having a hazard identification and risk assessment process, meaning a foreseeable injury risk was not controlled.

A company requires active direction and management by the 'duty holders' in charge," this is critical to the safety and wellbeing of its employees.
Relying just on the experience and judgement of senior officers or employees rarely results in safety compliance and puts the business in huge risk of a catastrophic event happening such as this one.

In September 2020, a 16-year-old Port Augusta Steel apprentice was unpacking a delivery of steel sheets into a vertical storage rack with his supervisor when two of the rack's rusty posts failed under the weight of the sheets.

Thirty sheets weighing a total of 1.2 tonnes fell on the apprentice, pinning him to the wall of the workshop shed. He suffered a broken femur and soft tissue injuries.

Port Augusta Steel was charged with and pleaded guilty to breaching section 32 ("Failure to comply with health and safety duty–Category 2") of the South Australian Work Health and Safety Act 2012 in failing to comply with its primary duty of care and exposing an individual to a risk of serious injury.
Its directors Geoffrey Glen and Julie Glen pleaded guilty to contravening sections 27 ("Duty of officers") and 32 in failing to exercise due diligence to ensure Port Augusta Steel complied with its safety obligations, including by using appropriate hazard identification and risk assessment processes to eliminate or minimise safety risks associated with using the rack.

There were also no formal instructions for the task and the rack's safe working load was unknown.

Geoffrey Glen believed no more than six sheets of steel should be placed in each racking slot, but this belief was not conveyed to others, included in a written work instruction or signposted on the rack.

The apprentice was instructed by his supervisor that each slot could hold at least 30 sheets.

The PCBU failed to regularly inspect the rack for signs of distortion, rust or corrosion, and the welds connecting its support posts to the bottom frame were rusted and cracked.

Directors don't need to be experts to appreciate hazards

Geoffrey Glen and Julie Glen acknowledged not being across their WHS responsibilities, but contended they lacked the expertise and knowledge to complete a risk assessment of the structure.  This is not uncommon as there are huge complexities when it comes to OHS in the workplace but the basic safety principles are not.  Even so, they should have engaged an expert OHS Consultant to work with their business to ensure 100% compliance.

The structured method for conducting hazard identification and risk assessments, and implementing control measures, is set out in the Regulations to the Act and are readily available. The process may require professional or technical expertise to identify all foreseeable hazards, but the method is the same.

In this case, an expert was not needed to identify the absence of any weight limit and the failure to periodically inspect the frame's welds as hazards that could cause injury.

After the incident, and in response to SafeWork SA compliance notices, Port Augusta Steel engaged an engineer to design an appropriate steel storage rack, which it fabricated. The directors also undertook a work health and safety management training course.

This is a perfect example of a workplace incident that could have been avoided if the storage rack were in a safe condition and safe systems of work had been implemented.

Young workers are necessarily unable to protect themselves by their experience and judgement.  They and their parents must place their trust in an employer complying with mandatory safety laws.