Ask the Experts: Answers to Your Safety Questions

1. Are we required to have a health and safety program?

Currently, there are no OSHA requirements that a manufacturing facility have an injury prevention plan (or safety plan).

OSHA recommends, however, that you have an injury and illness prevention plan to reduce incidents in the workplace.
Also most insurance companies require such a plan to reduce claims, and some state-run OSHA programs (Connecticut’s is not one of them) also require a plan.
(Note: OSHA has proposed an Injury and Illness Prevention (I2P2) plan requirement, but it is not yet a legal requirement.)

2. Does a company’s in-house forklift trainer need to be certified?

Technically the answer is no. OSHA regulations require only that “the training consist of a combination of formal instruction, practical training, and evaluation of the operator’s performance in the workplace.”

Also “all operator training shall be conducted by persons who have the knowledge, training, and experience to train powered industrial truck operators and evaluate their competence.”
However, the question then becomes how can in-house trainers get this training and knowledge without getting instruction themselves?
So, no, an in-house forklift trainer does not have to be certified, but when you think about it, how else would you go about validating that he or she meets OSHA’s requirements?
So it’s probably wise to make sure that your in-house trainer is trained and certified.

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Please submit your safety questions for our panel of experts to CBIA’s Phillip Montgomery.