Taking a stand on glove standards

Sometimes taken for granted, your hands are vital tools that perform simple and complex tasks with precision and need to be taken care of. To be injured or, worse still, amputated, would not only be devastating but could also mean you are unable to carry out the thousands of activities that are required to take place every day both at home and in the workplace.

Work-related hand and wrist injuries are the most common work-related injury type and are an important problem in the Australian workforce, according to SafeWork Australia’s ‘Work-related hand and wrist injuries in Australia’ report. The report says injuries range from being relatively minor to very severe, most commonly involving the fingers, with open wounds the most common injury type and amputation the most severe injury type.

Preventing work-related hand injuries requires risk assessment to understand the hazards that exist and management to prevent or mitigate the risk as far as reasonably possible. Measures to minimise the risk of hand injuries include machine guards, lockout/tagout procedures, safety training programs, etc. Personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves cannot eliminate the hazard but are still an important safety measure as the last defence against hazards and therefore should be carefully selected.

However, with today’s myriad industrial hand protection options on the market, how do you tell a quality glove that will provide you with the protection you need?

Australian/New Zealand Standards help make the choice of which brand of PPE to choose very simple. It helps to ensure you are getting the very best and safest protection for your workers. Purchasing products that are not made to meet the requirements of a standard increases the risk of both injury to employees and prosecution by the relevant safety authority.

Look at your safety helmet and safety glasses, and your respiratory and hearing protection - they are all certified to AS/NZS Standards. No serious employer or safety professional would specify either one of those products if they were not certified to the appropriate Australian Standard. So why should gloves be any different?

As industry does for eyewear, hearing and respiratory equipment, the introduction of a requirement for certification to AS/NZS Standards for gloves could help reduce the frequency of hand and wrist injuries.

Many gloves and other PPE claim compliance to a standard, but how do you know that the testing has been conducted? Also, how do you know that the factory is consistently making the product to the same standard and that the product is retested on a regular basis?

Certain manufacturers claim compliance to a standard or claim that their product is manufactured to meet the requirements of a standard. This is not the same as “certified” to a standard.

In order to claim certification to a standard, the manufacturer must engage an independent certification body such as SAI Global and satisfy the following:

• All test certificates specified in the appropriate standard must have been conducted by an accredited independent third-party testing laboratory;
• The manufacturing facility must undergo an audit to ensure systems and procedures comply with the appropriate standards;
• The manufacturing facility must undergo an annual audit by the same third party; and
• Products must be retested on a regular basis.

This provides the end users and employers with the peace of mind that the PPE will provide the protection it claims.

Anthony Elliott is Managing Director of Elliotts, manufacturer and supplier of quality safety gear throughout Australasia. He has 25 years’ experience in designing, manufacturing, sourcing and distributing specialist gloves, personal protective equipment and apparel. Elliotts has a core focus on Product Certification and a commitment to delivering the highest standard of products available, with eight sites and more than 340 products certified across seven global standards.