42 DC VELOCITY MAY 2016
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A: In the morning, we will have speakers, including
forklift industry leaders like Brett Wood, chairman of
Toyota Material Handling North America, who currently
serves as chairman of ITA’s board of directors. I will
also be speaking as chair of National Forklift Safety Day.
We will also hear from Jordan Barab, who is the deputy
assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and
health, and second in command at the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). We will also
have someone from the National Safety Council as a
speaker because we want to extend the discussion
to include pedestrian safety. And we will hear from
Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan,
who heads the House
Subcommittee on Workforce
Protections, which has OSHA
oversight.
In the afternoon, we will
have congressional meetings
on Capitol Hill. Our purpose
there is to make legislators
aware of what we’re doing and
to thank them for their support
of our agenda. Interestingly,
several of the people we’ve
met with in Congress have
driven forklifts themselves,
maybe for a summer job when
they were in college, so they
have an idea of what we’re
talking about.
Q: TELL US ABOUT ITA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH OSHA.
A: We believe that we have an excellent relationship
with OSHA because we’ve put a lot of effort into it.
We’ve had a national alliance with OSHA for over 12
years now, and we’ll formally renew that alliance for
another five years the day before National Forklift
Safety Day. We’ve given over 25 forklift safety seminars
for OSHA personnel throughout the country, and we’re
planning on doing five more this year, which will give us
a total of about 600 OSHA attendees for full-day safety
sessions, which have been very well received.
We think these efforts and other alliance activities
give us a reputation with OSHA as an organization that’s
committed to and knowledgeable about industrial truck
safety. Even before our alliance began, ITA successfully
petitioned OSHA to adopt detailed operator-training
regulations that seem to have reduced accidents dra-
matically. Our current regulatory project is to ask OSHA
to update its regulations to recognize the latest con-
sensus forklift safety standard, updating the regulatory
reference from the 1969 version of the standard to the
2012 version. This will recognize a significant number
of safety improvements in forklifts over the last several
decades. What all of this means is that we see a lot
of value and put a lot of emphasis on our relationship
with OSHA. (Editor’s note: For more on the OSHA-ITA
alliance, see “Together again: OSHA and ITA” on page 1.)
Q: HOW WILL ITA MEMBERS BE RECOGNIZING
NATIONAL FORKLIFT SAFETY DAY AT THE LOCAL
LEVEL?
A: The best way to reach forklift owners is through their
local dealers. A lot of dealers
will be offering free operator
training on that day. The free
training day at the regional
level is something we’re really
pushing. It was very successful last year. My company, for
example, had completely full
rosters all day long at all of
the facilities where we offered
it. If we can multiply that by
all of our members’ dealerships, then we’ll really make
an impact. We’re developing
online safety information and
other materials we can get
into the hands of the dealers
and the end users.
Q: WHAT IS THE MAIN MESSAGE ITA WOULD LIKE DC
VELOCITY’S READERS TO TAKE AWAY FROM NATIONAL
FORKLIFT SAFETY DAY?
A: The main message is that the most important asset in
business is your employees and that the safety of your
employees—not just forklift operators but also pedestrians—should be paramount. We need to provide a safe
environment in order to consistently reduce accidents
and hopefully eliminate mishaps related to the operation of forklifts.
Have you ever gone on YouTube and searched for
“forklift accident”? You get over 120,000 results! Not all
are U.S.-based, of course, but you can see what kinds of
things happen when people don’t follow safe practices.
There are so many examples of improper operation.
Driving too fast, turning too fast, failing to warn pedestrians, improper braking, improperly securing a load—
the list goes on and on. More than anything else, safety
depends on a combination of properly maintained
equipment and the right training for people. That’s our
message for National Forklift Safety Day. b
