Health and Safety at work

[trucker-tim]

Hello
When loading my truck at work we are in caged loading area with one exit by the truck, and one at far side for factory staff to load cage for us to load through. Now the powers that be have starting to padlock the internal gate to cage leaving us only one exit. which leaves only one exit down the side of the truck. Is this legal? I don't think it is. if the lorry is on fire then we'd have know way out!!

Thanks
Tim

[brenda]

Why is the gate you mention now being locked-- is it to prevent lorry theft or something else?

[trucker-tim]

there seems to be no reason as the gate is inside the building, so no chance of lorry theft.

[THEMOTLEY1]

Know way out,...............that can't be right

[EDDIE51]

All working areas must have at least 2 exits, fire safety law.
Don't bother with management just go to your local full time fire station and report this to them. They will make a safety check visit and give the company 24 hrs to get it right or they shut them down. They take this sort of thing very seriously and on fire safety the fire brigade word is LAW !

[boxtops]

Do you have a Health and Safety officer - you must have - any organisation surely has an H&S representative who is responsible for your risk assessments and for reporting accident etc. - speak to them.

[trucker-tim]

Thanks for your help gonna pop to local Fire Station to see what they gotta say. Nobody seem to know who Safety officer is any more as the last one got made redundant.

[EDDIE51]

trucker-tim , that is 2 offences already, they HAVE to have a safety officer, it can be a part time job shared with another job but there has to be one.