Labour hire provider responsibilities

Labour hire providers have legal responsibilities to keep their employees safe when they are placed with a host. Understand your occupational health and safety duties as a labour hire provider.

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Labour hire providers and host employers

Labour hire providers supply workers to other businesses on a fee or contract basis. Labour hire providers are also known as temping, contracting, on-hire or labour supply agencies. Group training companies that provide apprentices and trainees to hosts are another type of labour hire provider. When they pay the employee, by law the labour hire provider has the duties of an employer under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OHS Act).

The host employer is the business/organisation that labour hire employees are placed with. The host employer is the client of the labour hire provider.

OHS responsibilities

Under the OHS Act, a host employer is taken to be the employer of a labour hire worker. This means the host employer owes the labour hire worker the same occupational health and safety (OHS) duties as any other employee.

However, labour hire providers and hosts are both responsible for the safety of labour hire workers and have shared responsibilities for their health and safety. No contract can exclude the labour hire provider or host employer from fulfilling their legal obligations to provide a safe place of work.

The labour hire provider's and host employer’s shared responsibilities include:

  • providing and maintaining a working environment that is safe and without risks to health and safety
  • training
  • assessing risks
  • monitoring the health of employees
  • monitoring conditions at the workplace

Both must also ensure the labour hire worker is capable of undertaking the assigned work and provided with everything the labour hire worker needs to do the job safely, for example, knowledge, qualifications and personal protective equipment (PPE).

The OHS Act does not intend that labour hire providers and hosts duplicate efforts to fulfil duties to labour hire workers. Instead, labour hire providers and host employers have to work together.

Under the OHS Act, labour hire providers and host employers must consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other, so far as reasonably practicable, to ensure all duties to labour hire workers are met.

Labour hire providers must also:

  • provide information to labour hire workers about OHS, including in other languages as appropriate
  • keep information and records relating to health and safety of labour hire workers
  • employ or engage persons suitably qualified to provide advice on the health and safety of labour hire workers
  • ensure the workplace and the means of entering and exiting the workplace are safe and without risks to health
  • consult with labour hire workers when required under OHS legislation
  • do everything reasonable to ensure negotiations on the establishment of a designated work group (DWG) within 14 days after receiving a request from a labour hire employee

As an employer or prospective employer, a labour hire provider is guilty of an indictable offence if it discriminates against an employee or prospective employee on the basis that the employee does things the OHS Act allows.

Labour hire providers and host employers who have duties towards the same labour hire workers must, so far as is reasonably practicable, consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other.

OHS responsibilities before placing a worker with a host employer

Before sending a worker to work with a host employer, labour hire providers need to establish whether the workplace is safe, so far as it is reasonably practicable. If it's not safe, you should not send anyone to work there.

As a labour hire provider, you must continue monitoring the labour hire worker's safety throughout their placement with the host employer and consult with the worker on OHS matters relevant to their job.

You must, so far as reasonably practicable, consult, cooperate and coordinate with the host employer of the labour hire worker.

You should do the following before initial placement of a labour hire worker with a host employer:

Assess the workplace

OHS representation

Labour hire providers may have a health and safety representative (HSR) who can raise health and safety issues on behalf of employees. It is possible an HSR from both your organisation and the host employer can represent labour hire workers.

If there is no HSR at your agency, labour hire workers can ask you to negotiate with your employees to establish DWGs so that HSRs can be elected. You must do everything reasonable to ensure negotiations start within 14 days after the request.

The host employer's HSR can also represent labour hire workers.

Employee safety is your responsibility

Performing the necessary workplace checks may seem like hard work but a look at the latest prosecutions provides good incentives to prioritise employees’ health and safety.

Go to Prosecution result summaries and select: Category > 'Labour hire'.

Read the latest prosecutions

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