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Dollar General isn’t the only offender. Other major retailers, including Wal-Mart, ToysRUs, and Lowe’s, together with smaller retail and grocery chains and warehouse and distribution operations large and small, have been repeatedly cited for the same set of hazards, which appear to be common to many warehouse operations.
Today and tomorrow, we’ll look at the hazards that persistently recur in warehousing operations.
Heading for the Exits
One set of related hazards that poses a repeated problem for warehouse operators of all sizes involves exits. Over and over again, OSHA cites warehouse and retail operations for:
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Locked exits. Whether for reasons of site security, loss prevention, or simple carelessness, retail and warehouse employers seem prone to locking emergency exit doors. This is both an OSHA violation and a fire code violation, and both OSHA and the local fire marshal will cite it if they discover it.
It is possible to prevent theft, secure your site, and still enable workers (and, in some cases, customers) to get out quickly and safely in a fire or other emergency by equipping doors with panic bars and alarms and labeling them “for emergency use only.”
Blocked exits. Blocked exits come in several varieties, all of them particularly dangerous in a fire:
- Fire doors that have been blocked open. Fire doors in stairwells and fire walls must be kept closed in order to maintain the fire rating of the exit routes or the integrity of the building’s fire safety construction. When doors are blocked open for convenience, workers are placed at risk of fire spreading unchecked through buildings and up emergency exit stairwells. Make sure that workers don’t block fire doors open.
Register now to learn how to develop an effective near-miss reporting program to reduce the risk of serious injuries at your facility.
- Exits that have been blocked by improperly stored materials. This is a particular problem in warehouses and retail stores, where OSHA often finds pallets, merchandise, and garbage stacked and stored in front of doors and along exit routes. Make sure that egress routes are clearly marked and kept free of obstructions along their length, and that exit doors are also unobstructed.
Tomorrow, we will look at two more hazards OSHA repeatedly cites in retail and warehouse workplaces.