Balfour Beatty, a UK based construction company, has been fined £500,00 and has incurred further costs of £195,000 after it was found to have been exposing it’s workers to Hand Arm Vibration (HAV) over a nine year period. That translates to a whopping 1.25 million Australian dollars in cost. You can view a HAVs Information Sheet and Risk Management Guidelines from Safe Work Australia by following the links.

Workers were exposed to HAVs while operating power tools such as hydraulic breakers and floor saws.

An investigation by the HSE found that Balfour Beatty failed in its legal duty to ensure risks to workers who used the power tools was kept to minimum. The company was also found to have failed to assess the risk to worker’s health,  place and monitor suitable risk control measures as well as the deployment of a suitable system of health surveillance.

You can read the full article here.