Businesses urged to review coiled steel storage and moving

WorkSafe Vic has warned companies using coiled steel to review their storage and moving practices after a 51-year-old man died this month at Hastings.

On 15 March, the man was crushed by a coil of steel weighing around 25 tonnes and two metres in length. The man was working with the driver of a forklift at a dockside warehouse around 4:30 pm.

While investigations continue, WorkSafe has placed a seven-day non-disturbance notice and two prohibition notices on the warehouse.

The director of WorkSafe's Manufacturing Logistics and Agriculture Division, Trevor Martin, said companies and workers should actively seek out potential safety issues, talk about ways to eliminate them and ensure improvement work is done.

"It is essential that safe systems are in place for the storage of coiled steel and that appropriate steps are in place to eliminate the possibility of the product shifting.

"Rather than saying "it should hold', you must be able to demonstrate that it will hold."

This is the 10th death reported to WorkSafe Vic this year. At the same time last year, there had only been five deaths.