The president of the Australian Industrial Truck Association (AITA) Steve Stewart has announced the introduction of the inaugural AITA-sponsored Safety Week, which will be held during February 2011.
“This initiative demonstrates the AITA's commitment to forklift safety in Australia and will be supported by all full members of the association,” Mr Stewart said.
“The week will be promoted via safety message posters that can be positioned in warehouses and other high traffic forklift areas, stickers that the members will affix to fork-lifts being delivered and rented during the nominated ‘Safety Week’, as well as links on members’ websites promoting the event and directing people to locations where additional posters and stickers are available if required,” he said.
The campaign is focused on the theme "Watch out for your mates" and links this to the various functions carried out daily on forklifts around the country that potentially can cause injury to operators and co-workers if not carried out with full awareness of the surrounding conditions and load being moved.
The message was designed to appeal to all workers and is based around the long tradition of looking after the well-being of family and friends at all times.
“We are extremely excited about this campaign designed to help reduce accidents involving forklifts in the workplace and plan to make this an annual event so that the suppliers of materials handling equipment in Australia can make a positive contribution to the safety of all employees working with, or around, lift trucks every day,” Mr Stewart said.