Powered Industrial Truck (Drivers)-who should they be.

You should have an established qualification program which includes a written as well as driving test. When any employee, temp or not, needs to drive an industrial truck, they should have a company issued drivers license. Lacking the license, they should not be on one.

That said, when an employee does damage to either your stock, or your building, FIRE THEM right then, on the spot. The other employees who witness the firing, will think twice, act slowly and no more problem.

We have both, temp and permanent employees driving fork tucks, we need both. Once we train them, lay out the expectations, and fired one guy, we no longer had any problems in the plant.

(at one time, I had to give the driving test, it was make a pick, and them place it exactly where I told them too. I looked for how fast they drove, I watched to see if they looked before they backed up or made a turn, and if they used the horn.)

"You should have an established qualification program which includes a written as well as driving test. When any employee, temp or not, needs to drive an industrial truck, they should have a company issued drivers license. Lacking the license, they should not be on one."

Not just a good idea...it's the law. OSHA requires formal training programs to be established and each certification is to be equipment & site specific. In other words, just because the employee has been trained on the Clarke doesn't mean he can cross the warehouse and use the Hyster that is parked over there. Likewise, just because you trained him on the Clarke at facility "A" doesn't mean he can go to facility "B" and use the exact same model of Clarke. Also, certifications are to expire after two years (maybe three years, I don't remember offhand).

But I agree, certified or not, you should have a zero-tolerance policy for damage caused by lift-truck operators.

If there is a labor shortage, you may not have much of a choice.

But one should have some type of safety program in place.

sorry this does'nt help, but the problems you have are not uncommon at this time.

I was on a Safety course last year, as part of the requirement to get an "un-escorted" pass to a particular site.

I don't remember all the details, but this is an outline of a story I was told:

A well-known, busy UK retail store, near Christmas. Everyone qualified to drive a forklift was on leave, or off sick. Manager told a temp. (with no training) to drive the forklift, as goods had to be shifted; he said they'd "sort out the training & paperwork later - after the rush". There was an accident - fatal, I think. They threw the book at everyone concerned, from chief execs down.

As some one stated that OSHA requires that all operators be trained. This training in some companies is just a procedure. It does not really give the personnel the necessary training to operate the equipment safely. To do so on temporary personnel may not be cost effected if their term with your company is too short.

There is also the issue of the quality of the personnel being brought in from the temp agency. If we shop around for the agency with the lowest rates. That rate in some way reflects on the quality of the personnel they hire. Paying a little more to a different agency may reduce losses. With the extra cost you may be able to request the individuals that you have already trained and you feel that can do the job safety with lest amount of damage. You may be able to make these requests to the agency you are now using.

There are many employee that are permanent workers for temp agencies because that is the type of work the like. Constant changing environment and work assignments I guess reduces boredom. Many of which are good workers and responsible.

You now have to decide if the reduce losses would cover increased in cost to the new agency.

As a high school student I had a job in a warehouse, and they turned me loose driving the fork truck. Before they banned me, I had run over a guys foot, and while moving a tall stack of pallets I managed to run right into a car in the parking lot (had about a foot of fork sticking though the pallats, so the forks went right through the door of the car).

I think training and licensing fork truck drivers is a fine fine idea. Letting 17 year old kids drive them is a bad bad idea.

Hello Steve S,

After reading your Post, I'm so glad I lived far from you at that time.

Here in NZ, we have the Government Driving Licences, plus specific certificate for the particular store.

That way, troubles have been minimised.

Mind you, over 47 years ago, things were different, and I learnt to drive bulldozers, cranes, buses, heavy trucks, trailers, you name it, all on the job, and encouraged to learn, by my then employer.

The largest truck on the road was a 5 ton truck, most were3 tons, but with a special licence there were only a few 7 ton trucks around, and almost all goods went by rail.

But in even earlier times, at the tender age of 12 years, I worked during school holidays with a well-paid job, for a Government Department in NZ.

That's something which would never be allowed these days....

I actually grew up in college, and they hired me back as a fork truck driver, and as a Lorry driver. The biggest truck I drove was a 5 ton flatbed delivery truck though. That was fun, and I managed to work there a year or so without incident.

good thing you were'nt twins..........you can do more damage that way.

One isn't born with experience, and there is only one way to earn that.

<.....opinions.....vary...>

Then consult the company that provides liability and personal injury insurance for this site for a definitive answer.

If their job requires the use of a lift truck, why bother to hire them if they're not qualified to operate same? It's not rocket science to operate one, and human beings are usually pretty easy to train in safe operation of one. How temporary are we talking here? Are these 'temps' are Drug/alcohol free, or do they come in hungover or worse. I guess it depends on the quality of the temp agency. If you're not getting the 'quality' or trustworthiness that you're looking for, look elsewhere. IMHO, most 'safety' people are really bureaucrats, looking more to justify their existance in the scheme of things, being overly conservative with working conditions, rather than actually educating and training people in the means and methods of doing their jobs safely.

Check 29CFR1910.178 first

Please give some explanation when giving a link - especially one as obscure as this. This is particularly true as you are an untrusted source (you are 'Guest' -you could be anyone!).

Actually, he wasn't giving a link. In the US, these are the OSHA laws. (CFR = Code of Federal Regulations). To anyone outside the US the reference would indeed be obsure.

29CFR1910 is the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration statute for general industry. (CFR = Code of Federal Regulations) 29 is the title number and 1910 is the part. The U.S. government's way of keeping track of all the many, many laws.

Ken & CSM - thanks for the clarification - John.

Hello CSM Engineer,

Thank you for your OSHA explanation.

"The U.S. government's way of keeping track of all the many, many laws.

"

Just to say that most of the so-called "Laws" are not Law, but Statutes, which come under the jurisdiction of "Commercial Code or Admiralty Law", which is how you get "judged" if you break a Statute.....

"Common Law" is God's Law, which is above Government, the Statutes are made by Government, and are "Legal".

The US, as in many other locations, is firstly a "Common Law" location, then after that is Commercial Government, then Statutes.

There are so many Statutes, that it is not possible to know them all, since they are being altered constantly.

That is a purely commercial system which keeps Lawyers, Police, Judges, Courts, Politicians etc in jobs.....

what else can attorneys and politicians do?

I'm a Temp at a Dept Store for the holiday season.

The company I work for won't even let you operate a motorized pallet mover if you have not been trained on it. And no one under the age of 18 is allowed to even operate any of the motorized equipment. And they make the under 18's quit work at 9:30 pm.

I actually enjoy working there and will stay all year if they ask me to.

The only problem I have with the place at the moment is the store closes at 11 pm we get out by midnight but I have to be at my full time job by 5 am. Makes for some long days with little or no sleep. Once they go back to their normal 9 pm close time it will be a piece of cake.

personally, I refuse to operate any kind of machinery until I am properly trained in doing so. I worked for a retailer once that fired me for not obeying orders and operating a forklift. I have no shame in that.