Employee’s Responsibilities Under Current Legislation & Official Guidance For Mechanical Lifting

Mechanical Lifting

Employers or self-employed persons providing lifting equipment for use at work must comply with the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER). The main principles of LOLER are that that all lifting equipment is:

• Sufficiently strong, stable and suitable for the proposed use. Similarly, the load and anything attached (eg timber pallets, lifting points) must be suitable;
• Positioned or installed to prevent the risk of injury, eg from the equipment or the load falling or striking people;
• Visibly marked with any appropriate information to be taken into account for its safe use, eg safe working loads. Accessories, eg slings, clamps etc, should be similarly marked.

While employees do not have specific duties under LOLER, they do have general duties under the HSW Act and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (the Management Regulations), for example to take reasonable care of themselves and others who may be affected by their actions
and to co-operate with others. In practice this includes:

• Not operating machinery unless competent
• Being careful about their own and other safety when carrying our lifting operations
• Complying with their employer’s requirements for safe lifting