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OSHA developed several forklift safety guidelines to help protect drivers and pedestrians. As part of their requirements, pedestrian pathways should be clearly marked and free of obstruction.
Not only does OSHA have regulations for the forklifts themselves, they also have specific requirements for forklift operators. The Powered Industrial Truck Standard outlines the topics that must be included during training, as well as requirements for refresher trainings.
A forklift is a powered truck used to carry, lift, or tier materials. The vehicles, also called pallet trucks, fork trucks, or lift trucks, can be powered by combustion engines or electric battery and are extremely useful and time-efficient for completing laborious construction projects. However, they can also be dangerous if not safely and correctly operated. Here are several safety tips that forklift truck drivers should adhere to each time they operate the vehicle.
Warehouse hazards are often the cause of workplace accidents. Choosing the correct type of storage will greatly reduce the potential hazard in a facility. The correct storage medium will reduce improper lifting, reaching and travel distance to retrieve an item.
Warehouses are home to all sorts of technology and machinery, but their most valuable occupant is also perhaps the most vulnerable: human employees. When it comes to ensuring the safety of warehouse workers, shortcuts aren't an option.
Warehousing has a higher fatal injury rate than the national average across all industries.
OSHA has cited a New York cookie maker for exposing employees to falls and other hazards at the Ferndale, New York, facility. Nonni’s Foods LLC, manufacturer of premium cookies, faces $221,257 in penalties. OSHA opened an inspection on Aug. 22, 2019, after learning that an employee fell on Aug. 7, 2019, and was hospitalized.
America’s workforce is aging. According to AARP, nearly half of new jobs in the U.S. last year were filled by workers 55 years or older. Due largely to ongoing labor shortages, this disproportionately small demographic accounted for more than 1.4 million of the 2.9 million new jobs in 2018, many of them in the fast-growing sector of warehousing and distribution centers.
An OSHA investigation into the deaths of four employees of an Illinois chemical plant has resulted in more than a million dollars in proposed penalties against AB Specialty Silicones LLC.
The company has been cited for a dozen willful federal safety violations in the explosion and fire at its Waukegan facility on May 3, 2019 that claimed the lives of four workers.
OSHA statistics indicate that there are roughly 85 forklift fatalities and 34,900 serious injuries each year, with 42 percent of the forklift fatalities from the operators being crushed by a tipping vehicle.
Here’s a look at recent OSHA and state-level OSHA enforcement activities across the U.S., from Hawaii to Connecticut, in construction, manufacturing, food processing and other industries.