Developing a safety training on warehouse worker Hazards for structural steel fabricating and supply companies

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a collaborative effort between two US universities, The American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) and a steel fabricating corporation to develop and implement a bilingual (English and Spanish) safety training program on warehouse worker hazards for structural steel fabricating and supply companies. Structural steel fabricators receive structural steel material, fabricate structural elements for steel framed buildings and bridges and then ship fabricated material to projects. Steel service centers purchase material from steel mills and distribute steel to structural steel fabricators. Workers in structural steel fabricating and supply companies are at risk of fatal and non-fatal injuries. In addition to exposure to common warehouse worker hazards in other industries, structural steel warehouse workers are exposed to risks related to the large, heavy and variable nature of the steel material they handle. Furthermore, some warehouse workers employed in structural steel fabricating and supply companies speak Spanish as their native language and have limited English fluency that puts them and their co-workers at an increased risk of fatal and non-fatal injuries. Structural steel warehouse workers face many barriers to receiving adequate safety training that is in a language and manner that workers can understand. The structural steel fabricating and supply industry includes many small companies that are geographically distributed among the United States and may lack the resources to develop and implement adequate training programs for their workers. When training is available, it is often offered in English which limits the Spanish-only worker's ability to understand the training and may increase the risk of injuries due to employers mistakenly believing that workers are trained to safely perform their duties. In order to address the barriers to adequate training, the research team successfully obtained a training grant from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop an English and Spanish Warehouse Worker training curricula for use with worker training. The training consists of peer to peer activity based learning. The training covers potential hazard exposures that flow from warehousing and processing tasks such as off-loading and loading materials, movement of material by overhead crane, forklift, loaders or by hand, falls from equipment or loads, struck by or caught between accidents, musculoskeletal injuries due to lifting, bending or working overhead, electrical equipment operation and maintenance requiring safe practices and lock-out/tag-out, and chemical processes. Educational materials consist of a six contact hour worker training which includes activity based learning, PowerPoint presentations, demonstration materials, trainee workbooks and a learning outcomes assessment. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by highlighting the results of a partnership between academia, a professional society and a company to develop and implement a safety training program with the common goal of decreasing the number of fatal and non-fatal injuries among structural steel warehouse workers. The paper concludes with recommendations for those interested in forming partnerships to develop and implement training programs.