WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE

WRT Program was instrumental in breaking down some of the long standing barrier separating retail employers from government agencies. The WRT program found an advocate among loss prevention experts who had the same basic goals as NIOSH in respect to safety and health. From there, the program was able to build partnerships with key trade associations that served the wholesale and retail trade sector.  The WRT Program was invited to attend and present about the NORA WRT Sector Council and NIOSH WRT Program at national conferences. This exposure helped break down barriers and introduced conference attendees to NIOSH’s work. These meetings also allowed the WRT program to establish personal connections with loss prevention managers, who then joined the NORA WRT Council. These loss prevention managers represented the top 20 leading retail businesses with a national presence. This group was fluid with new members and some leaving over the years from 2006-2012.

The WRT program has also established a close partnership with the Loss Prevention Foundation, which serves as the source for continuing education and certification for those high level managers who are responsible for introducing a significant number of the larger establishments to NIOSH and its Mission. The Foundation posts NIOSH resources on its website, which has greatly expanded their reach. The WRT has also had letters of agreement with the Material Handling Industry of America, the Food Marketing Institute, and the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

NIOSH WRT leadership in 2008 recognized the need to show the value and impact of simple interventions that have a potential for preventing back and musculoskeletal (MSD) injuries. The proposed demonstration projects were based on NIOSH experience using similar interventions in related labor-intensive industries, such as manufacturing and construction. To accomplish this, a series of six demonstration projects were conducted at one or more high risk subsectors (store sites) for the purpose of showing the types of interventions available for reducing MSDs and related back injuries. The reports from these demonstration projects proved invaluable in showing employers and employees examples of how ergonomically designed manual materials handling equipment could be used to reduce the physical burden of manual lifting, which was largely responsible for near epidemic proportions of back problems and attendant MSDs in this sector. Perhaps even more importantly, the demonstration projects showed how lifting-assist devices would allow a greater number of workers, many of them older, to perform material handling jobs without the added risk of injury and loss of work.

As a result of the demonstration projects, two major retail chains that served as demonstration sites were sufficiently impressed by the lift-assist devices that were demonstrated and recognized their potential to reduce their number-one injury, MSDs, that they decided to further evaluate the demonstration interventions at other store sites. In one case, the retail chain expanded the study to more than 100 store sites. This is an example of the “ripple effect” from demonstrating an effective intervention.

Manual material handling is the most frequent hazard in the WRT sector, and it accounts for the majority of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). NIOSH initiated a “Lift at the Right Height” campaign in 2008, in recognition of the growing rates of “overexertion” injuries highlighted over the past 5 years by Liberty Mutual’s¹ Research Division in their annual reports on the state of workplace health. The slogan is not just a reminder about lifting at or about the waist, but more importantly that for many of the material handling jobs, the best lift is “no lift” (meaning using equipment rather than physical strength). In some cases, a simple “push or pull” action may be used instead of manual lifting.

NIOSH demonstration projects showed the primary impediment to achieving the goals of the WRT lifting campaign was that the majority of manual material handling equipment did not meet the needs of employers and employees.  The NIOSH WRT Program leadership and NORA WRT Sector Council saw the need for a new “line” of material handling equipment that would meet the needs of the WRT sector. To address this, NIOSH co-sponsored a series of three workshops in 2012-2015 that brought together equipment designers/manufacturers with purchasers/users seeking solutions to manual lifting tasks. Some of the nation’s largest retailers participated, together accounting for nearly 6 million of the 15 million retail employees.

The workshops were successful in several ways. They stimulated follow-up and encounters between the solution providers and the WRT solution seekers. They also produced a collection of “best practices involving the use of lift-assisting devices” and  examples of how engineering controls can be used to reduce manual material handling and lifting injuries, uniquely related to the retail and wholesale workplaces and employees. From 2014 through 2015 the NIOSH WRT Program was informed of equipment purchases by several large retailers in conjunction with the manufacturers of ergonomic assist equipment. The workshops provided the information that was used in the development of the NIOSH guidance document Ergonomic Solutions for Retailers: Prevention of Material Handling Injuries in the Grocery Sector.