Warehouse Safety and OSHA Requirements

Keeping your warehouse workers safe will reduce the incidences of time-wasting injuries and costly citations. Fatal accidents occur more often in warehousing than in any other industry. To preserve the safety of everyone in your facility, create a set of safety rules that everyone must follow. Your warehouse safety requirements should carefully follow the guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Jump To Sections:

• Common OSHA Citations in Warehouses and How to Avoid Them
• Warehousing OSHA Requirements for Other Areas
• Warehouse Checklist for OSHA Compliance

About Occupational Safety and Health Administration

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration ensures safety as a regulatory body that enforces the guidelines it makes through citations. Too often, though, companies see this group as an enemy instead of a partner. The aim of OSHA is to keep all workers safe on the job. Instead of seeing this as a problem, employers should understand the benefits of adhering to the group’s regulations. By having a safer warehouse, you will experience fewer accidents and fatalities. Both of these incidents can cause major work disruptions and decrease productivity through lost employees and investigations.

What Is OSHA?

In 1970, the U.S. Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act that would create OSHA. This organization, under the Department of Labor, helps to keep workers safe on the job. By creating and enforcing safety regulations for almost all private sector industries, OSHA imposes a baseline for safe operations. If followed, these requirements should reduce accidents that could lead to injuries or fatalities.

While most focus on the regulatory aspects of this group, its other task is education. It teaches workers about their rights to a safe workplace and trains employers in their responsibilities for upholding the guidelines.

Why Is OSHA Important for Warehouses?

For warehouses, with their high rate of fatalities, OSHA helps to ensure employees’ safety. Warehouses have multiple dangers that could cause serious injuries, including falling shelving or pallets, vehicles running into people and trips and falls. The OSHA standards try to prevent such injuries by mandating safe practices and equipment. For example, workers need fall protection, such as railing if working on a platform off the ground. Backup alarms on forklifts can prevent unaware workers from getting run over by a reversing vehicle.

When you follow these standards, your warehouse will be better able to stay on task with a full workforce since fewer employees will need time off for injuries. OSHA and the warehousing industry should be partners in protecting workers and increasing productivity.

Common OSHA Citations in Warehouses and How to Avoid Them

Citations occur when a facility fails to adhere to the standards required by OSHA for basic safety. These citations indicate potentially hazardous situations that could lead to worker injury or death.

The agency cites these as the top causes of warehouse citations.

1. Forklifts

Misusing forklifts result in approximately 95,000 injuries each year and 100 deaths. The majority of these casualties occur from the vehicle turning over.

To protect your workers from adding to these statistics, train and certify all forklift operators, who must be over 18. Training should include how to conduct safety checks of the area, how to drive and use the forklift and how to safely stow it after use.

All trained personnel must know to drive the forklifts slowly and never back them up on docks. Forklift drivers should wear a seatbelt and not surpass speeds of five miles per hour, nor should the operator use equipment in poor condition. Flat tires, bent parts or any other problem that prevents the safe operation of the forklift should keep the equipment in maintenance until after repairs finish. Drivers should never approach anyone standing against fixed surfaces such as walls or shelving.

Because many forklifts use internal combustion engines, their operation creates harmful exhaust gases. Train employees to only use these devices in large spaces with ample airflow to allow the carbon monoxide-filled exhaust to leave the area.

2. Hazard Communication

The hazard communication standard, 1900.1200, requires proper labeling of all chemicals in your facility. These labels communicate through words and pictures of the dangers of the contents of the containers. Workers should know at a glance whether the barrel they move contains a benign substance or something potentially hazardous.

For all chemicals at your facility, you must have safety data sheets on hand to refer to. These sheets contain information on the safe handling of the substance as well as any hazards it might produce. For instance, you can find out whether a chemical poses an inhalation hazard or will burn the skin from the safety data sheets. Employees have the right to request these at any time for reference.

This standard requires employers to communicate information on the hazards of handling chemicals in the facility. Training, labels and safety data sheets are all methods you must use to convey this information to your employees.

During training, you must cover the hazards posed by dangerous chemicals, how workers can protect themselves and how to read labels on containers. For instance, if a substance has a danger of irritating the eyes and lungs, you need to warn workers about these risks and teach them to wear safety goggles and an appropriate respirator designed to filter out toxic gases when handling the containers.

You must also create a written plan for your facility to monitor for spills or leaks and respond to them. OSHA presents several options for you to do this. A supervisor may stay on-site and watch for signs of a spill such as vapors or odors, or you could use continuous monitoring devices that detect spilling liquid or fumes from a releasing gas.

3. Electrical Wiring Methods and System Design

The wiring methods and system design used for electricity in your facility also fall under OSHA regulations. Wiring methods prevent sparks or short circuits from poorly installed electrical cables from causing a fire.

Regulation 1910.304 governs system design for electrical wiring, while 1910.305 guides you on safely laying wire and connecting electrical systems.

In 1910.304, you will find rules on correctly grounding electrical connections and inspecting electrical plugs and outlets before use for signs of damage. This standard also lists maximum loads for outlets as well as the use of circuit breakers to prevent overloading outlets.

In standard 1910.305, you will find information on proper wiring methods. This rule includes details on how to use tracks and wire trays for running wires safely across a facility. For example, if you have welding cables, you must run them through dedicated plates.

Electrical safety guidelines will cover an entire manual alone, but be sure to look over the specifics from the OSHA requirements to get answers to specific questions you may have about safely wiring your warehouse or using electricity in it.

If you have charging stations for lift trucks or other electrical equipment in your warehouse, you need to keep safe around these electrical hazards. Without following OSHA safety rules, a fire could break out, or workers could sustain severe chemical burns from battery acid.

Never allow smoking near charging stations, and adequately ventilate the area. Proper ventilation prevents gas from the batteries from concentrating into noxious fumes in the area. Workers should use gloves and safety goggles when using a charging station and have an eyewash station nearby to wash out battery acid if it gets in their eyes. Keep a fire extinguisher within reach that everyone at the station knows how to use. When charging a vehicle, ensure the brake fully engages. Safe use of charging stations is another way your workers can stay safe around electricity in your warehouse.

4. Guarding Holes or Openings in Walls and Floors

Holes or openings in walls and floors could allow a worker to slip or trip and fall to the ground. If large enough, the gap could even make a worker fall into it, sustaining severe injuries.

To prevent accidents, the facility manager or employer must keep the floor free from hazards such as ice, snow, spills, water, leaks, loose boards or corrosion. The surface also needs to stay clean and dry.

If the hole in the floor opens more than 4 feet above another level, you must have a cover, fall arrest systems such as a personal system that attaches a safety line to a worker’s harness, guardrails or travel restraint systems. Any block around the hole must protect all sides of the opening.

Other holes in walking surfaces that open less than 4 feet above the lower level require a cover that will support twice the maximum load. You should also secure the cover to keep it in place and to prevent tripping over the cover or accidental displacement by forklifts driving over it or people walking by it.

5. Exits

Your warehouse must have enough exits to allow workers to evacuate the building in a fire or other emergency. You should train your workers on how to leave the building and the location of all regular and emergency exits. Ensure your exits have clear markings above them so anyone can find them, even if they do not know the layout of your warehouse.

The regulation 1910 subpart E covers exits and emergency routes in workplaces. You must have at least two exit routes, but if you have a large facility or too many workers to safely evacuate through only two doors, you will need more.

The most crucial aspect of exits is always keeping the routes to them open and accessible. You cannot block any exit routes with vehicles, storage containers or other things that would prevent people from quickly evacuating out of the warehouse. The exit doors also have to stay unlocked so anyone can open them from the inside without needing keys, passcards, combinations or other special devices or information.

6. Mechanical Power Transmission

Equipment powered mechanically instead of with electricity requires special handling. Mechanical power-transmission apparatuses include a variety of moving belts, flywheels, pulleys and chains. Section 1910.219 covers these devices and how to protect workers from injuring themselves in the moving parts.

To prevent people from getting fingers, arms, hair or hands getting caught in moving parts, you must have guards over the components if they operate within reach of workers. For example, flywheels less than 7 feet off the ground must have a cover over them. Guarding mechanical power-transmission apparatuses ensures you stay within the requirements of the regulations.

7. Respiratory Protection

Workers who may experience exposure to noxious fumes will need respiratory protection. This type of personal protection equipment (PPE) takes many forms. Specific types of respiratory protection prevent the inhalation of different substances. For example, dust masks only protect against breathing in dust, but they do not protect against gaseous chemicals.

The respiratory standard requires employers to attempt to mitigate the dangers to workers’ lungs through engineering methods first. For example, using engineering could mean keeping chemicals in tightly sealed containers in a separate area with its own air circulation system. You will still need to require workers to use respiratory protection when handling potential breathing hazards, but taking additional precautions lowers the chances of injury.

Next, you must provide and enforce the use of respirators for workers who need them. Any workers exposed to hazardous levels of dangerous, breathable contaminants need a respirator. As the employer, you should use your discretion to evaluate the level of respiratory dangers in the space. If you cannot determine the danger level, consider it an immediate danger to life and health (IDLH). This situation means your workers will need positive pressure respirators with a separate source of air.

Look at the respirator and filter information to identify what they keep. For instance, for some situations, you will need particulate filters to prevent dust from getting into the user’s lungs, but other types of filters will protect against gases.

8. Lockout/Tagout

Lockout/tagout refers to rendering electrical machinery safe when servicing it. This process prevents the device from accidentally turning on.

A lockout device can include bolted slip blinds and blank flanges. Key-operated locks or combination versions prevent the device from getting power and hold them in a safe position.

Tagout devices give others a written warning to not use the machinery. The tagout warning must remain in place and cannot wear off from wet conditions until after a worker takes off the lockout device.

OSHA counts not using a lockout/tagout procedure as a significant hazard for warehouse workers. With lockout/tagout, your workers can avoid injury by preventing devices from getting accidental power and turning on, such as when servicing forklifts.

9. Portable Fire Extinguishers

Having fire extinguishers onsite keeps small fires from expanding. Keep several portable models on hand around your warehouse and keep them fully charged.

Fire extinguishers have chemical compositions to respond to four classes of fire:

• Class A: These fires involve ordinary combustibles such as paper, some plastics, wood or cloth.
• Class B: Class B fires occur when combustible liquids, grease or flammable gases.
• Class C: Electrical fires fall under Class C.
• Class D: These fires happen when combustible metals catch fire. Metals involved in these fires include titanium, magnesium, potassium, lithium, sodium and zirconium.

You will choose the types of fire extinguishers to fight fire classes based on what you store in your warehouse. If you have electrical, combustible liquid and paper in your facility, you will want a multipurpose fire extinguisher, which fights Class A, B and C fires.

Place portable extinguishers in several places around your warehouse, so workers walk no more than 75 feet to reach one from wherever they are for Class A models. If your facility requires the use of Class B fire extinguisher, allow no more than 50 feet to get to them. Class C fire extinguishers follow the spacing of Class A or Class B.

Clearly mark the locations and ensure all workers have the training to use them and can access them without injury. You must inspect your fire extinguishers once a month. If you need to take out any fire extinguishers for replacement or repairs, you must have an alternative option in place.

Warehousing OSHA Requirements for Other Areas

While the previous problems ranked among the top violations in warehouses, they are not the only issues you can encounter. Your workers must know proper materials handling and storage, working near docks and how to prevent overuse injuries.

1. Materials Handling and Storage

The majority of workers’ jobs in warehouses is material handling. Unsafe practices can cause containers to fall on workers, accidents with forklifts or damage to products. For safe handling, ensure workers can safely move through the warehouse without running into each other or vehicles. Everyone must also have enough space to see clearly down aisles to watch for obstacles such as boxes in the way, other workers or forklifts.

For safe moving of boxes and pallets, you train workers in the best methods to use. For example, when depalletizing, or removing goods from pallets, workers must know the most secure way to stack the boxes while protecting themselves from overuse injury.

Removing boxes layer by layer from the pallet works best when taking off boxes with secure handles or in a push-back racking system. However, for heavier items, employing a pyramiding technique in which the worker takes containers off the pallet in a diagonal pattern starting at the top front and working toward the back. To facilitate the depalletizing process, workers should use lift tables, which take much of the effort out of the task. The tables support the load instead of the worker, which prevents overuse injuries to the back and shoulders.

When stacking goods, limiting the height of a pile prevents the collapse of products that may fall out of boxes or irregular containers such as bags or bundles. Other options for securely stacking these goods include blocking or interlocking the loads together. If the goods stacked will ship together, using a stretch wrapper holds the products together in a bundle more tightly and requires much less effort than if wrapped by a person.

2. Working Around Docks

Working around loading docks poses significant hazards due to the number of people and products moving around in a situation where attention can lapse. Failing to pay attention to their position on the dock and where everyone else is could cause a worker to drive a forklift off a dock, run into a vehicle or knock over pallets waiting for loading.

Dock plates must stay securely in place and efficiently support the load on them. When driving a forklift over these plates, workers must go slowly and use extreme caution. Never back forklifts up to the dock’s edge as one of the most common injuries around docks is from forklifts falling over the edge.

3. Ergonomics

Ergonomics refers to using safe body positioning and movements to prevent overuse injuries or acute muscle strains. Train workers to treat break periods as critical parts of their job. Workers who do not take regular breaks put themselves at risk of fatigue, which makes it easier to forget to use correct lifting techniques. You should only consider overtime as a last resort. Too much time doing the heavy lifting can lead to injuries.

Prevent workers from accidentally overexerting themselves. Put case weights on slots, so a worker knows how much they will lift. Also, require all employees to wear sturdy, non-skid footwear in the warehouse to avoid slipping, especially when carrying heavy containers.

Train workers in proper lifting techniques. Employees should bend at the knees and lift using their legs and not their backs. Encourage the use of mechanical lifting devices where possible. For instance, lift tables can make raising or lowering loads much easier for employees. Pallet changers are an alternative to manually moving boxes from one pallet to another.

Warehouse Checklist for OSHA Compliance

To ensure your facility adheres to OSHA warehouse safety requirements, follow these basic guidelines as a checklist to start creating a safer workplace.

• Train workers in lockout/tagout procedures and enforce their use.
• Teach workers about working safely in hot and cold environments, including instructing them when to recognize they need to take a break.
• Keep the facility well-ventilated to allow for the workers’ comfort and to enable forklift exhaust fumes to escape.
• Maintain clean, dry floors clear of clutter.
• Give workers adequate breaks to avoid overuse injuries and excessive fatigue, both of which can result in pulling mistakes or severe injuries.
• Block off any areas with guardrails or ropes where workers could fall more than 4 feet.

Keep Your Warehouse Workers Safe With the Right Equipment

If your warehouse requires quality-made equipment to keep your workers safe, contact Cherry’s Industrial online or call 800-350-0011. We have the tools to help improve the ergonomics of your workplace to prevent overuse injuries or accidents. See our full range of products at Cherry’s Industrial to help make your warehouse safer and more productive.