An employee at Bunnings is suing the company after she was warned she and fellow colleagues would lose their bonuses if she proceed with making a workers’ compensation claim for a spinal injury allegedly suffered on the job.
Nicole Moldenhauer has lodged a claim against Bunnings for over a half a million dollars following a back injury sustained from moving heavy products onto shelving.
According to the claim, Bunnings had a policy of discouraging staff from lodging WorkCover claims, and attempting to manage injuries internally.
Court documents state the policies caused Nicole delaying seeing her own doctor until three months after it occurred.
She was told in December 2018 by a duty manager that after six sessions of physiotherapy paid for by Bunnings, they wouldn’t pay for further treatment and enquired whether Nicole wished to lodge a claim.
“The manager reminded her that if she did so all staff in the Maroochydore store would lose their bonuses. Ms Moldenhauer did not then appreciate that her right upper limb symptoms were in fact related to a disc injury in her cervical spine.”
Nicole alleges the injury happened while she reloaded stock items as heavy as 20KG on the top shelf of a racking system.
To complete the task, Nicole had to stretch her arms, manually handling items from an electronically operated raised platform.
“To perform the work, it was necessary for her on occasions to reach forward, fully extend her upper limbs, bending at the waist and bearing her weight on tippy toes to reach and take a hold of the stock.”
She claims the hardware giant failed to take reasonable steps to eliminate manual handling risks, or properly instruct her on how to use the platform safely.
Injury symptoms included numbness to her hand and soreness.
The claims states she didn’t pursue her own investigation into the symptoms due to Bunnings’ policy of discouraging staff from lodging WorkCover claims, and attempting to manage work related injuries internally, not reporting them to WorkCover.
Nicole didn’t see her doctor until February 20th, 2019, over three months after she sustained the injury.
“She did not immediately attempt to lodge a WorkCover Claim or see her private doctor as she had been informed prior to the date of the incident that bonuses would not be payable to staff unless metrics were met with respect to time loss injuries and workers compensation claims.”
“It was reinforced to her prior to the date of the incident at pre-start meetings that if there were workers’ compensation claims of time loss injuries that all staff would lose their bonuses. Subsequent to the incident, she was informed again at daily team meetings when she attended to undertake light duties that staff would not receive bonuses if there were any workers’ compensation claims or time loss injuries.”
Bunnings has lodged a defence, denying Nicole was required to lift products that heavy onto shelving, and “anything above that weight would need to be handled by two persons.”
The company said the injury wasn’t reported at the time to them, and Nicole has expressed uncertainty as to whether the injury was “work related given her activities at home with three children.”
Bunnings said it “remains uncertain as to the truth or falsity” of the other allegations.
CPO (Chief People Officer) at Bunnings, Damian Zahra said there was “nothing more important to us” than providing a safe working environment for the team, and there were processes in place to manage injuries from work when they occur. These include providing personalised care and support.
“As this matter is currently the subject of legal proceedings and parties are preparing for trial, it’d be inappropriate to provide further comment.”
Nicole’s lawyer, Travis Schultz, said it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment of case specifics, but said under QLD law, employers are obliged to report any work-related injuries they are aware of to a workers compensation insurer.
“While employers have an interest in managing their statistics regarding workplace injuries, the legislation imposes a duty on employers to complete a report in the approved form, and give it to their insurer if a worker sustains an injury for which compensation may be payable.”
