Working as a warehouse operative means you are putting your health at risk on an almost daily working basis. There are so many workplace health and safety risks in a warehouse, so it’s important for your employer to do things the right way to make sure you are not injured in the line of duty.
So what are your rights as a warehouse worker if you are injured in the workplace? Can you make a claim for personal injury compensation?
Common risks and accidents
The degree of risks you are at are broad. Really common examples of warehouse related injury claims involve:
- Manual handling injuries from strenuous or repetitive lifting and moving
- Falls from height – perhaps when using ladders to reach high shelving
- Trips and slips on debris on the ground – like plastic tie wrapping or cardboard
- Injuries caused through using equipment like pallet trucks or forklift trucks
There are loads and loads of workplace health and safety regulations employers must abide by, and they’re all designed to make sure you are not injured at work. So if you are injured and your employer has breached health and safety law, they may be liable for a work injury claim.
When can I claim?
Using the above examples, we can look at the law and we can often tell when there is a breach which can lead to a winning claim.
Manual Handling Injuries
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations say that manual handling should be totally avoided where possible. Where it can’t be avoided, your employer must:
- Provide equipment to assist where possible
- Properly train staff to safely carry out lifting and moving tasks
- Risk assess any task to ensure there is the right amount of people and ensure the route is good
- Ensure employees are not lifting too much weight or too many loads too often
So put it this way – if you have been injured at work due to manual handling and the reason for the injury is because your employer has failed to do one or more of the above, you may have a winning case.
Falls from Height
The Work at Height Regulations can be similar in many ways to the manual handling ones. It’s all about ensuring that:
- Equipment (such as ladders) provided are suitable and in good working order (which is also a part of The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations which I’ll touch on later)
- Ensuring staff are adequately trained in safe working practises at height
- Risk assess all such activities to ensure it is safe to carry out
Again, any failure to adhere to the regulations that causes an injury can pave the way for a winning compensation claim.
Slips and Trips
Here we have The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations which put a duty on your employer to:
- Have regular systems of inspection and maintenance to look out for slip and trip hazards on the ground and clear them appropriately
- Organise traffic routes and the workplace in general to minimise such risks – for example by providing plenty of bins and receptacles for placing rubbish in to prevent clutter on the floor
- Training staff to look out for such hazards to avoid them and clear them away
Once again, a failure to take such reasonable steps by an employer can make them liable for a claim if someone slips or trips in the warehouse. Falling and landing on a hard warehouse floor can cause some serious damage – this is something all employers need to take very seriously.
Equipment Injuries
The really common ones are where employees are accidentally hit by their colleagues operating forklift trucks and pallet trucks. If a colleague is at fault, your employer can be automatically liable for a claim. This is known as vicarious liability. Traffic routes should be organised to minimise such risks by separating vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
When it comes to faulty or unsuitable equipment, your employer can be liable in either situation. There is a clear duty to maintain equipment to ensure it is not defective and risk assess equipment to ensure it is suitable for the task at hand.
So what to do?
Well, as you can see, there are plenty of regulations we can rely on if you are injured in a warehouse. All you need to do is call 0800 634 7575 and let us do the rest for you.
