Employer and employee responsibilities under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992

The following tables, provided by the Department of Labour, outline the employer and employee responsibilities under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.

Table 14: Employer responsibilities under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992
Section Employer responsibility
6
  • Providing a safe work environment and facilities for employee safety and health.
  • Ensuring work equipment is safe and employees are not exposed to hazards while working.
  • Developing procedures for dealing with workplace emergencies.
7
  • Identifying and assessing hazards to determine their significance of causing harm.
8 to 10
  • Eliminating, isolating or minimising significant hazards so they do not cause harm to employees.
10
  • Providing, making accessible, and ensuring the use by employees of suitable protective clothing and equipment needed to keep themselves safe.
  • Monitoring the workplace to ensure hazards do not cause harm.
  • With the consent of employees, monitoring employee health.
11
  • Providing employees with the results of any health or workplace monitoring
12
  • Providing information to employees on how to keep themselves safe when working, including how to manage hazards, where necessary safety clothing and equipment is kept, and what to do in an emergency.
  • Providing information to health and safety representatives to enable them to perform their duties.
13
  • Ensuring employees are adequately trained and experienced to do their work safely, or ensuring they are adequately supervised by an experienced person.
15
  • Ensuring no actions or inactions by employees causes harm to any other person.
19B
  • Providing opportunities for employees to participate effectively in ongoing processes for the improvement of workplace health and safety.
  • Adopting recommendations made by safety committees or health and safety representatives or provide a written statement explaining why the recommendations cannot be adopted.
19C
  • If 30 or more employees are employed, or less than 30 employees are employed and a request is made, developing an employee participation system for health and safety at work.
  • Where health and safety representatives exist, providing the necessary numbers of paid training days for health and safety representatives to attend courses approved by the Department of Labour.
25
  • Maintaining an accident register to record workplace accidents and incidents.
  • Notifying occurrences of serious harm accidents to employees to the Department of Labour as soon as possible after the event, followed by a written report within seven days of the event’s occurrence.
26
  • Not interfering with the scene of a serious harm accident unless it is necessary to prevent further suffering, minimise property damage, or maintain access to essential services.
47
  • Co-operating with a health and safety inspector’s investigation.
40, 43
  • Complying with improvement notices and prohibition notices issued by a health and safety inspector.

 

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Table 15: Employee responsibilities under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992
Section Employee responsibility
19
  • Ensure their own safety at work, including by using suitable protective clothing and equipment.
  • Ensure their actions or inactions do not harm others.
26
  • Not interfering with the scene of a serious harm accident unless it is necessary to prevent further suffering, minimise property damage, or maintain access to essential services.
28A
  • Refusing work likely to cause them serious harm (unless the nature of the work is ordinarily inherently dangerous), provided the employee has tried to resolve the situation with the employer and the matter has not been resolved.
  • Doing other work as directed by the employer.
36
  • Undergoing a medical examination if required by a departmental medical practitioner.
40, 43
  • Complying with improvement notices and prohibition notices issued by a health and safety inspector.
46A
  • If a trained health and safety representative, issuing hazard notices if health and safety issues have been identified to the employer but they have not been resolved.
47
  • Co-operating with a health and safety inspector’s investigation.

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Last updated: 15 March 2011