18 Jun Industrial Manslaughter
There has been much written recently about this subject and it has been accompanied with changes to legislation in some jurisdictions.
Let us explore exactly what industrial manslaughter is.
Murder is roughly defined as the taking of a human life with prior intent. A typical scenario might be when a person plans to take another’s life due to (say) jealousy. They plan what they are going to do with indifference to life and they execute the plan resulting in that person’s death.
Manslaughter is where human life has been lost unintentionally or accidently. This can have many causes such as excessive self-defence, negligence, insanity etc.
The outcome of both Murder and Manslaughter is the same, loss of life but the penalties are harsher for Murder as it is amongst the most serious of crimes.
Manslaughter is generally broken into 2 categories:
- manslaughter by unlawful and dangerous act
- manslaughter by criminal negligence.
When we impose this subject into a workplace it is uncommon for murder to occur, no employer plans to kill its employees thus in the workplace context we think about Manslaughter ie death occurring due to one of the above 2 elements.
Of recent times we have seen the introduction of Industrial Manslaughter legislation in NSW which was the only mainland state to not have this in position, it has introduced jail time of 25 years and fines of up to $20million for breaches of the legislation.
Definitions vary in different states, but they all have the same intent and that is to keep workers safe and they all impose imprisonment and huge financial penalties.
Please be mindful there are 3 separate entities that penalties could be levelled against:
- The legal entity
- The PCBU
- An Officer of the company
If you are not sure what the requirements are and how to keep workers safe, then we suggest you consider enrolling in a relevant WHS course.
BSB41419 Certificate IV in Work Health and Safety information can be found HERE.
BSB51319 Diploma of Work Health and Safety information can be found HERE.
We recommend you research https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/ every month for relevant changes that might affect you and your work mates.
NB: at the time of writing Tasmania does not possess legislation for Industrial Manslaughter.