Woolworths worker soaked in olive oil

The unlicensed and unsupervised worker was operating a reach truck, similar to a forklift, to move pallets in June, 2008.

Worksafe manufacturing and logistics director Ross Pilkington said it was pure luck no one else was injured.

“The worker tried to use the reach truck to return a pallet to its place in an eight-metre-high rack,” he said.

“As he did so, the reach truck’s mast hooked onto the pallet above the empty position, causing the load from the pallet he was raising to fall.

“Glass bottles of olive oil broke open on the roof of the truck, soaking him in oil.

“The worker operating the reach truck had only completed a day of basic training.

“He was shown how to use a truck by another storeperson — but after a few hours’ supervision, he was left to operate it on his own.

“Clearly he shouldn’t have been operating a reach truck — it wasn’t safe for him or his fellow workers.

“Woolworths and Woolstar have an obligation to make sure all trainee forklift operators are supervised by a licensed operator, and that trainees operate equipment unsupervised only when they’ve been deemed competent.”

A Woolworths spokeswoman said it was a regrettable incident.

“The undertakings will help us to continue to improve safety standards at the site and the learnings will help further improve safety standards for the industry,” she said.

Woolworths and subsidiary company, Woolstar, which also employs staff for the distribution centre, have entered into a legal agreement with Worksafe which requires them to carry out a range of safety improvements around forklifts and reach trucks.

Part of the conditions include Woolworths publishing an article on the incident in its internal newsletter and an external industry publication and installing mast cameras onto all reach truck forklifts at all their warehouses.

Woolworths failed to return The Border Mail’s calls yesterday.