Lol, you are absolutely correct. I work for OSHA, its my tactic as well. Really just trying to get an accurate picture of whats going on and to see if the employer provided proper training. Not trying to hassle folks.😏
I worked for a manufacturing company where the head of security bragged about kicking OSHA offsite. It turns out if you refuse them entry because they won't put on steel toes or wear a hard hat correctly, they look really bad in front of their supervisor and you stop getting visits for a while.
Can confirm. We had one refuse to wear a hard hat using the justification of "I won't be going near the forklift." so we didn't let him in the building. He shot himself in the foot by calling his boss, not realizing he was going to have to explain why he wasn't being allowed in. Inspector hung up the phone, asked for an escort to the front, signed out, and left. A month later we get a different guy who gets out of his truck and immediately starts putting on the full gamut of our required PPE before he even comes into the office. He had to take all of it off and use our onsite PPE because we dont allow anyone to use their own for liability reasons. I don't know what pissed him off more, the fact that he had to do all of that or the fact that he didn't find a single violation during his inspection.
Health Inspector: "You have your food handling license?" Me, a Walmart Deli employee, confused: "N... no? Should I?" The Health Inspector, appalled: "Y... yeah." And then I didn't get one. True story.
Typically only a few people are required to have a food handling certificate in the building. Depends on the state and business but its usually the managers/chefs who will be food safety certified.
Also former Walmart deli. Do not keep cardboard boxes behind the counters for any reason, make sure you time the hot case so you're not making a fresh batch that gets tossed at closing time, never dump oil down the drain and assign someone to wash dishes.
@@PaladinThizz no place you've ever gotten fast food from has employees with food handlers licenses. It wasnt until after I quit that me and my boss realized that my ass spend 3 years there and never got around to it
@@ivanlagayacrus1891 My manager would put up a list every three months of who didn't have one and needed to get one ASAP "or else it was their ass." Long story short, they'd never get the license and it would be nobody's ass because we wouldn't be able to stay open with that many people gone
@@Subreon which is followed by question #2: “should you leave the forks raised waist-high when not in use?” Seriously, the test is all “no” answers and takes 15 seconds to get certified.
There are 2 types of certification. A personal cert which costs more money and on your own time, and a company cert you don't pay for, but lose as soon as you leave the company.
I've been an electrician for almost 20yrs and the only time osha showed up on a job I was just starting out and didn't have my apprenticeship license and my lead told me to hide out under the building. Had a nice nap then lunch then about 2hrs of real work. Not too shabby.
had osha show up once while I was a lifeguard. Everyone got to go home early that day cause when they pulled up they saw me and another guard coming out of the pump room where we were dumping chemicals (just doing what we were told) apparently we needed PPE just to be in there let alone dumping chemicals in nothing but our wet swim suits lmao
Lying about safety concerns automatically voids my side of any employment agreement once I've received damages. Cannot believe American employers hire the liars they do... *** As an employee concerned with employee safety & regulatory compliance, I am sorry to inform you that I have witnessed many instances of possible OSHA violations this summer. Riding pallet jacks and standing up pallets are only two of these issues as I am already aware one of these comes with something like a ten-thousand dollar fine. Local firecodes generally say that employees need a clear and clearly marked path to any fire exits. However, the fire exit along your back wall has been inaccessible from high volume work areas due to trash and staging carts recently. There are also no signs pointing employees to this exit. In addition to this, ______ has a machine which cleans clothing errors that has clearly marked MSDS warnings. Older employees or employees suffering from breathing and cardiac issues suffer an increased risk of heat stroke during the summer. This is a liability in addition to the carcinogen warning. I have also noticed that employees do not use eye protection and this facility does not include OSHA approved eye wash stations. Finally, I have noticed that both foot traffic and forklift traffic has increased drastically lately in the main inventory aisles. This presents a greater risk of collision between pedestrians and powered industrial vehicles. Clarifying safe distances that employees should stay away from operators actively lowering pallets and who has the right of way at intersections can increase safe work practices. Some of these issues may have relatively simple fixes. For example, in principle, angling a fan to blow the chemical vapors from the cleaning machine out the door may mitigate exposure to harmful fumes. In other cases, installing safety devices like wall mounted eye wash bottle stations, or angled mirrors at high traffic intersections for forklift operators to check around corners may be required. While this is no guarantee, further developing your safety policy and investing in appropriate improvements will at least mean you won't have a problem with OSHA. Your time and attention in this matter is appreciated ***
We had an OSHA inspector show up once while the boss was directing the guys on how best to properly balance on the fork truck to use it as an impromptu scissor lift for a welding job to repair a roof beam of some such shit. I dunno, that wasn’t my area. All I know is that we didn’t have a job anymore after that day and it was probably for the best. Edit: I’m drunk as fuck rn and just saw that this stupid anecdote about an old job of mine has almost 10k likes. Wtf.
Fork lifts make great scissor lifts! Just put an empty pallet to stand on and if you're really worried you can use a harness. OSHA always ruins the fun.
Was working on a 13 story building and everytime OSHA showed up the elevator operator would tell us through the speaker system so whatever fucked shit we were doing we could just pretend we weren't
@@GunShark0 all that metal they use for hvac is soooo sharp man, I install floors so I don’t see much of it but the metal inside the slot where the floor vents sit will fuckkk you up.
I worked for osha for 10 years out of kentucky and ohio, I can confirm that's how some companies were. They would slide a few 20s my way, like, heres 40 bucks, you didn't see anything. Never take the money, because now you just committed, and contributed to a federal offense of bribery to a government official of safety, and accepting a bribery while representing a federal safety organization. That's like up to 15 years in prison. Now i was pretty fair, told them I'd take it, if i was off the clock. I was never off the clock. And i would never enter a site without a warrant and at least 1 law enforcement officer, "I've actually been attacked for just showing up on a safety call". Osha doesn't just show up, it takes about 5 calls or reports in order for osha to show up. Most osha laws were made to protect the worker. I've been to a few jobs where i had to investigate why someone died, the body is gone, but the blood isn't. Or someone had a glass furnace blow up, and had to investigate why 2 people got burnt up, employers don't always care about your safety. I'd make a list of things I've seen that violated osha law, The only time i would say anything, is if it was really unsafe, or broken, and someone was trying to use it. The biggest thing was the lock out tag out procedure, id bust an ass for that. Yes i wrote you a $1200 fine for not doing that, takes 2 minutes, there is absolutely no mercy for laziness. But for forklifts, as long as the safety checklist is filled out, most inspectors won't go any further than that. Because there really isn't a set law on license for forklifts, as long as you're certified through the company, most inspectors won't even care. And if you're really nice to them, they overlook a lot of little things.
@@HJKampe right, its not like osha shows up at a job site for no reason. The only place they give random inspections on is the food industry. Thats because it's people's food, and a food processing plant will try to cut as many corners as possible. If people knew just how much crap is allowed into the food we eat, everyone would be growing their own food.
OSHA is definetly needed the problem is the safety inspectors seem to have some sort of a god complex and think they cant be wrong about anything because they have read all the books and now everything has to be by the book even if the book is 100 years old.
@@jirieskelinen5607 the entire point of osha's rules is to keep you from dying on the job or otherwise getting seriously injured. That's literally their entire purpose. Your employer has to follow their rules to make sure you're safe.
@@93DavidJ I get that, but a lot of what they do actually makes things less safe, and they make my job more time consuming and less efficient when I need to get shit done.
@@jirieskelinen5607 Agreed. The purpose they are intended to serve is good. The execution of it, not so much. Me: Standing in the bed of a pickup truck to trim some lower branches off of a tree on a beach. Safety Guy: What are you doing?! You have to use a proper ladder. This isn't safe! Me: You think it's safer to stand on a ladder in the sand than on the flat bed of a truck? Safety Guy: Yes.
Lol back in the late 90s I was contracting a Ruby Tuesdays. I saw OSHA pull up and told everyone to immediately stop what they were doing and take lunch. Everyone heard me but the 3 electricians who happened to be on the top steps of their ladders up in the ceiling running wires while wearing shorts and flip flops with headphones on. The OSHA guy gave them so many fines. Then the OSHA guy said "where did everyone else run off to? I saw them leave when I got out my car". I told them they took lunch. He said "so they all just take lunch at 9 in the morning? I said "hey men gotta eat". So he decided to wait for them. So I called the trim guys, the painters, and the plumbers and told them to just hang out in the grocery store parking lot next door till the guy left. That dude actually waited 2 hours for them to come back before he got frustrated and finally left. Funniest part to me was I thought the electricians had originally left with everyone else. It wasn't until I was walking with the OSHA guy that he pointed to one ladder and asked a guy to come down. I looked up and all I saw was the legs of one of the electricians on the very top step and you could only see his legs from below the knee caps. The rest of him was above the drop ceiling. And he had shorts and flip flops on. In my head I was just like "Jesus Christ dude .... wtf"..
i woulda said something to the electricians because i worked for a general. When youre a sub trade you can push the limits like those sparkies were, but that's just ignorant
This is random, but I just recently started working at a new company as a 1st year plumber's apprentice. They had me driving the forklift around doing various odd jobs with it, I'd never driven one before. So this video is pretty funny to me lol
@@notsmii7y yeah bc most of us have pressure to get shit done fast and you can’t always follow code when it comes to getting shit done, ya just gotta get it done.
I hurt my back in late 2020 at a warehouse. They had a shelf 40 feet in length with 4 tier shelves on it, the bottom of which was about 19" off from the floor and the top shelf was over 6 feet. We were lifting 30 pound packages of sodas (24 packs of 20 ounce sodas) up onto the top shelf and down onto the lower shelf on a daily basis a ridiculous amount of times. When I hurt my back, they put me on light duty in another department. I was lead of my department before that. After 3 months, HR came to me one day and sent me home halfway through the work day. They said their insurance wouldn't pay for any more treatments for my back. They also tried to blame my low back injury on existing medical issues that were unrelated and that I had for about a year before the injury and was working with them. I got an attorney and sued them. I made a complaint to my local OSHA office who 'called' the employer and the employer told them that the department was walked for hazards and they were corrected. The HR manager replied to OSHA with photos of 'lifting charts' and stated that they were lifting properly and that we were trained on proper lifting procedures. My response back to OSHA was, "Show me where any of those charts posted on the board talk about lifting 30 pounds above the head that high and below the knees that low. They don't have one because they know it isn't safe to lift that weight to that upper and lower height all day." It took me almost 2 years, but OSHA finally inspected in person and saw that the employer had lied. They issued the HR manager a hazard alert letter stating that employees in that department were exposed to musculoskeletal disorders while lifting up to 30 pounds above shoulder height to approximately 74" for several hours daily and that we were required to bend to the lower shelf at a height of 19" throughout the day with a similar weight of 30 pounds. OSHA wouldn't cite the employer because OSHA claimed that no OSHA standard applied and said it was not considered appropriate at the time to invoke Section 5(a)(1), the General Duty Clause of the Occupational Safety Health Act, which would have issued a citation to the employer. They did tell them that the work area was unsafe, however.
I am confused about that work place but sounds like they should just get you a 2 step ladder, going down I would just drop a case 6 inches from the ground and slide under. Anyway, the key is to work smarter, not just harder. Always be looking how to make the job easier. Still, sounds like a bad job.. glad you got out of it.
Basically, it's the same as amazon. Only that's literally ALL DAY. Don't recommend working for them. If they put you in picking your back is fucked. I'd leave on the spot if that's your assigned position after orientation. NOT WORTH IT
Guys, Here is The True Savior YaH The Heavenly FATHER HIMSELF was Who they Crucified/Pierced for our sins and “HERE IS THE PROOF” From the Ancient Egyptian Semitic: "Yad He Vav He" is what Moshe (Moses) wrote, when Moses asked YaH His Name (Exodus 3) Ancient Egyptian Semitic Direct Translation Yad - "Behold The Hand" He - "Behold the Breath" Vav - "Behold The NAIL"
We had to wear safety glasses with a foam seal around them under our welding hood after someone got metal in their eye. They were using a grinder with normal safety glasses when it happened. That whole deal lasted about a day. I heard up on the north slope they once had to wear goggles, glasses, and a welding hood at the same time. They will also yell at you if you don't use the handrail on the stairs. Has something to do with the insurance companies, I'm sure.
Did a job where we had the contract for a whole brand new subdivision and we litterally had spotters for safety guys as soon as one entered the subdivision a mass text message would go out and calls and everyone would book it to make sure we had hard hats or harnesses ect. Lmaoooo
Guys, Here is The True Savior YaH The Heavenly FATHER HIMSELF was Who they Crucified/Pierced for our sins and “HERE IS THE PROOF” From the Ancient Egyptian Semitic: "Yad He Vav He" is what Moshe (Moses) wrote, when Moses asked YaH His Name (Exodus 3) Ancient Egyptian Semitic Direct Translation Yad - "Behold The Hand" He - "Behold the Breath" Vav - "Behold The NAIL"
All safety measures are written in blood, and OSHA is one of the few organisations that enforces them. It's the reason you have railings, the reason you have proper scaffolding, the reason why you need proper certification, et cetera. I understand that workers don't like red tape getting in the way of their business, but understand very quickly that OSHA is there to advocate for YOUR safety. I have to deal with public administration in my line of work, it sucks, but it's ultimately to make sure things are ABOVE BOARD. Don't take OSHA for granted. They'll save your ass.
Yeah. Lots of people laugh about avoiding OSHA, but I know a lot of people that have suffered from local corruption because of it. I have an ex whose lungs are permanently fucked up and who *cannot* work in entire fields now as a result because Pilgrim’s refused to provide proper PPE to handle chemicals. He wasn’t the first person to leave there coughing blood, doubt he was the last. Know a guy who got screwed over and lost a leg too, and then couldn’t do anything both because of legal loopholes and because he was too poor to get a lawyer. Like, I get it. I used to work in food, my husband still does. If I had a dollar for every time someone indignantly told me “THAT WOULDN’T HAPPEN/ THAT CAN’T HAPPEN THAT’s IlLeGaL” then he wouldn’t have to work another day in his life lol. I have cooked while standing in raw sewage in a hospital (though I quit that night and it’s something that has haunted me for years). You can’t always change to a better job, sometimes losing a job means you lose a house, lose the ability to eat, etc. there are no better paying jobs or even available jobs at all. I get it, I really do. But OSHA is much closer to your friend than your employer is. Employers don’t deserve your loyalty, not even the good ones. If you can’t find a different job and you can’t afford to lose this one, do what you have to in order to survive. But don’t lose limbs or inhale chemicals because you think that ingratiates you to the company.
I saw a man lose half his hand cut pretty much right down the middle due to unsafe practices a full YEAR after I had an accident there and there were no safety meetings, changes or anything. Year passes man lost his hand THEN osha comes in and then they reported all the shit that happened in the past 2 years. I left for a week to just chill I got back, no changes had been made and that dude is operating the same machine he got injured on this time with 3 less fingers bruhhhhh
Not a single one of us were forklift certified at my old job. Not that we didn’t know what we were doing, just we never took the corse. Boss said we didn’t need it if we could pass his test😂
@@homelessalcoholic2716 drivers licenses only exist so cops have a signed document waiving your 4th amendment rights. It's not hard to get a license, it just costs you money and your rights
if I would actually get one (I did it online but it's since expired and is also supposed to have an onsite guy sign it) I could then certify other people. I could do it sight unseen even but that would probably get me in trouble if someone had an accident and OSHA got involved
Boss I used to have would just suddenly send us all to lunch if OSHA pulled in... He was on top of it too, almost like he paid someone to just sit and watch for them lol He was like a modern day Paul Revere, running through the hallways "OSHA is coming!!! OSHA is coming!!!"
Funny thing is. Forklift certification is actually handled by a competency test by the employer based on OSHA standards. So your certification is real. For you. If your employer says it is.
I'm a former OSHA inspector. I am certified and was hired on to inspect a few sites on Ft. Hood. Lemme tell ya, people's personalities, work habits and... Everything pretty much changes when OSHA walks around. I personally removed a crew of 50 roofers from site because of not using safety harnesses correctly. They would jump up on the roof with the harness, and strap themselves to themselves instead of anchor points. They did not want to have to walk to the anchor and reanchor themselves. Now, I know I know, if it was a flatter roof and they seemed like they knew what they were doing then I might have 'not' seen it. However, when Joe runs from one part of the roof to another, without being anchored... And the pitch on the roof is steep and it's 4 stories high... Yeah, I'm not gonna be responsible for anything at that point. Foreman's, superintendents, everyone, pack up go home. They were banned from working on Ft. Hood for 30 days and need to pass safety training before being able to work on base again Funny enough, that's definitely not the craziest thing I've witnessed.
I don't understand people being unwilling to take 5 seconds to make themselves immune from workplace accidents. You could have an invincibility button by the entrance and half the workers on most jobsites would make up an excuse not to press it.
@@TooFewSecrets well it depends from job to job yeah, but being safe is not hard. It's an effort thing and it's crazy howany people will be unsafe just for convenience sake. They will risk body and limb to be / quicker, more comfortable, easier etc It's scary how many people actually risk their life doing things unsafely
I was walking a job with the white hats and one OSHA inspector. We walked around a corner to the courtyard, a crane that was not in service, was being driven by one of our laborers. He backed it up so he could clean the yard. My heart sank as I listened to that conversation. Was a short week.
If OSHA showed up at the DC I worked at years ago then I pity them for having to inspect that dump and skip lunch. Place is a time machine. The lifts and powered equipment too. Like warehousing in the 70s. The 1870s. Are you horselift certified?
And written by morons who can’t read “floor slippery when wet”, “electricity kills - do not touch”, and don’t do roofing when you’re intoxicated. Oh! Don’t park on railroad tracks! Because people are dumb and Darwins law is ignored. Let’s keep people safe from doing themselves harm.
@@Darkmattermonkey77No, OSHA regulations are meant to allow people to use their good sense to keep themselves alive. Know what else is OSHA regulated? Fire exits, keeping hallways wide enough to allow for swift exits; or having safety gear on to get pulled out if something goes awry (3.5 feet, btw), whether work places can be locked to keep people from leaving or not, and more. OSHA exists to keep the boss from sacrificing you to make money in the most literal of senses. and you hate them, because you think it hinders natural selection? So you have outted yourself as a eugenicist, a class cuck, and misanthropist in one go. Good fucking thing you have no power.
If OSHA shows up, even if you run a tight ship, it’s cheaper to send the guys to lunch at a diner than it is to pay for a single idiots oversight. Let osha look at the books for your practice, but don’t let them observe operations.
Worked in a steel plant 20 years. Had a "Near Miss" where we worked 3 days with a definite natural gas leak. Called our safety rep to come take a look. His gas meter went off as he entered the building, (at least 50 yards from where the leak was). Mind you this happened before we had 3 coworkers explode in a different part of the plant, but the same outlook would probably still take place as nothing was done for two more days as the company waited for a scheduled down turn to fix the problem. So when I see all the responses of people about playing the game to avoid OSHA to keep things going or how OSHA doesn't do anything, don't complain about them when you are a part of the problem.
This reminds me of a newer hire that slipped and fell into molten metal while trying to take a sample. No safety railings of any kind. My second thought after imagining the few seconds of terror as physics occurred before incineration was," how many years was this in violation before somebody had to die for the fix?" My third thought was wondering what the impurity level of the metal was post event....I mean, what did they do with that batch?
That is illegal. Assuming you're American, federal law protects you for even mentioning a union. Call up a good lawyer and get yourself a sweet payout.
On nightshift one night, the guys were bored and decided to dump 10 galoons of Simple Green on the warehouse floor and proceeded to drift around on the electric forklift. Also had one of our guys in the shop bring the forklift back inside while it was on fire. He even parked it and plugged the charger in before walking up to the boss and telling him it was on fire. It ended up being some plastic trash from somewhere stuck underneath it but yeah, totally on fire.
On the jobsite, always leave some extension cords with bad ends lying out(low hanging fruit),pack everything else in the gang box and take a long lunch. Did this on more than one occasion
I've had a few awful employers over the years that I just ITCHED to ring the OSHA bell on. Lord oh lord to this day I bet a single phonecall I could still put a few pieces of trash out of business.
When osha showed up to our roof sites we’d jump over the other side of the roof and have a different shirt on by the time we hit the ground and be off to lunch before he could even catch someone to talk to
I've done both in my career. Mines are naturally more chaotic than steel mills, but if you've got your equipment and people up to snuff, you'll only get fined for things like the coffee pots being old, or too much wear & tear on an extension cord. It helps if your employer takes safety seriously, and trains & maintains. And yes, profit margins suck in those industries, but having to tell a young wife that she's now a widow sucks worse.
Today I learned it's really easy to dodge OSHA inspections and that there's a reason in addition to Corpo greed that so many widows get ruined in court...
I’m more worried about if it’s hanging up in plain sight. Some guys work better without it and only use when necessary. Some ppe gets in your way. Just don’t get things in your eyes or lose a finger and i look past that part. I’m just worried that the machines are cleaned and maintained.
Lmao I remember working in construction doing ceramic tile and our CEO told everyone if we ever caught wind that OSHA was on site we were to pack up all our tools as quickly as possible and sit in the vehicles til they left to mitigate any chance of fines. Lol safe to say we bend some rules from time to time 😅
In my line of work both get fined, seen people get fired for it, idk about forklifts, but not having proper ppe and harnesses, or not tenting off areas... I've seen it happen. I'm a Osha 30 certified painter.
My dad worked at a construction company and they would have a lookout at the only road going into the site. If the lookout saw the OSHA guys he would warn everyone and the would all start packing so when OSHA got there they couldn't linger and catch anyone breaking rules because everyone was "leaving" so OSHA would leave too. And as soon as the OSHA guys would leave everyone would unpack everything and go back to work like nothing happened.
Every time osha shows up my boss tells me to shut up and sit in the break room. I mean really you set one warehouse on fire and after seeing how flammable insulation and your not trustworthy.
I had a friend who didnt have a liscense on a jobsite and when osha showed up he just kept putsing around while were all yelling at him to lift materials up
He didnt want to operate the lift while osha was standing right there, cause he didnt have a liscense and if they caught him operating it he would be kicked off the site
It's cool you'll usually be given a grace period and time to get your ticket they are pretty chill about that sort of thing. (Unless there was an incident)
You're a moron then. You are not on the hook for anything OSHA critizes, your employer is. Don't protect the employer from an agency built to protect yourself!
