20 DC VELOCITY JULY 2018 www.dcvelocity.com
newsworthy
National Forklift Safety Day 2018 fulfills its educational mission
On June 12, members of the Industrial Truck Association
(ITA), which represents lift truck manufacturers and suppliers of associated parts and accessories, sponsored the
fifth annual National Forklift Safety Day in Washington,
D.C. The event provides an opportunity for the industry to
educate customers, policymakers, and government officials
about the safe use of forklifts and the importance of proper
operator training.
Among the highlights:
Material Handling, led off with overviews of the purpose of
National Forklift Safety Day and the economic importance
of the lift truck industry. They cited industrial truck sales
in 2017 of more than 253,000
units, the third consecutive
year of record sales. They also
emphasized the importance
of “free and fair trade” to the
industry.
b Loren Sweatt, deputy assistant secretary of the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), praised a long-running alliance
between ITA and her agency that trains OSHA inspectors on forklift safety. She also noted that approximately
7,000 incidents, including 72 fatalities, involving powered
industrial trucks were reported to OSHA in 2016. While
the number of accidents has declined over the years,
those numbers suggest that facility operators must further
improve their safety practices, she said.
b Pressure is building for Congress to confirm Scott
Mugno, head of safety and sustainability for FedEx Ground,
to lead OSHA, said Tommy Nguyen, staff director for Sen.
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) on the Senate Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s Subcommittee
on Employment and Workplace Safety. (Sweatt is tem-
porarily the top administrator.) Mugno’s nomination has
been approved by the HELP Committee but awaits confir-
mation by the full Senate.
b Jane Terry, the National Safety Council’s senior direc-
tor, government affairs, focused on the opioid addiction
crisis. The impact on employers nationwide is growing, she
said. A recent survey found that 70 percent of employers
have been affected by substance abuse of all types, but less
than one-third believe they are prepared to deal with it in
the workplace, she noted. The organization offers a free
“Employer Toolkit” with information on how to address
this widespread problem.
b Jim Mozer, ITA National Forklift Safety Day chair-
man and senior vice president, Crown Equipment Corp.,
emphasized that proper lift truck operator training is a
critical component of an effective workplace. He noted that
forklift manufacturers have made great strides in improving
the safety of the equipment they design, and that improving
safety through both product design and operator training
is a continuing responsibility. “Everyone deserves to come
home safe, every day,” he said.
b Creating and maintaining a safety-focused culture,
defined as the way safety is perceived, valued, priori-
tized, and integrated into daily activities, was the theme
of a presentation by Dr. Wes Scott, president and CEO,
Global EHSS Leadership Solutions. Scott outlined com-
mon myths—such as that safety costs too much and that
it’s impossible to have an incident-free workplace—that
contribute to accidents and injuries. He also recommended
regularly examining “near miss-
es” to identify potential causes
of accidents, then using that
information to train employees
to prevent them.
Following the presentations,
attendees headed to Capitol
According to ITA, the industry annually exports more
than $900 million of equipment to Canada and Mexico
under NAFTA; its combined trade surplus with those countries reached more than $460 million in 2016. Eliminating
NAFTA would lead Canadian and Mexican buyers to switch
to powered industrial trucks from other countries, jeopardizing many of the 200,000 U.S. jobs supported by the
forklift industry, ITA says.
The industry has urged Congress and the White House
not to impose tariffs on Chinese-made powered industrial
trucks, which like all foreign-manufactured lift trucks enter
the U.S. duty-free, and to instead focus on opposing tariffs
imposed on U. S.-built lift trucks. The U.S. imported approximately $538 million of industrial trucks and parts from
China in 2017, according to an ITA analysis of Commerce
Department and International Trade Commission data.
The 25-percent tariff on some Chinese-made forklifts and
parts announced by the U.S. Department of Commerce
would add an estimated $134 million to the cost of those
items, according to Commerce Department data.
If China imposes a retaliatory 25-percent tariff on top of
its current 9-percent duty on U.S.-made industrial trucks,
it would add $13 million to the $53 million of equipment
bought from U.S. manufacturers in 2017, ITA said.
