This week Americold Logistics, was issued 2 repeat and 2 serious citations from OSHA at their Manchester facility based on complaints from 3 employees.   The employees were forced to use forklifts in need of repair and were not taken out of service as they were trained to do.  This really burns my butt.  You spend all that time and money training forklift drivers to work safely, to do daily inspections and red tag unsafe equipment under the penalty of reprimand or termination and then you tell them to forget all that training and go ahead and use the unsafe forklifts?  What kind of message about safety are you sending?  What double standard is this?  If anyone of those workers had used a red tagged forklift and were injured or worse you know damn well that Americold would have thrown them under the bus.  There is only one message – SAFETY.

I commend those 3 employees who obviously were paying attention during training, however the supervisors and managers there need some retraining now!  If you know a piece of equipment is not safe to operate, RED TAG it and don’t let anyone use it.  If your boss tells you or threatens you to use it, CALL OSHA!