Lift broken at work

[Mitara]

The lift has been broken in my workplace for the last month.

The employer said he has been waiting for a part that he ordered.

However i have heard him moan about the cost of getting the lift fixed. He said that it will cot him thousands of pounds to get it fixed . He wont be paying for it out of his own pocket. It will come out of company money, but he just doesnt like paying for it.

The lift being broken has resulted in me and other members of staff having to walk up and down a lot of stairs more for normal tasks, and we are also having to do heavy lifting up and down stairs. I honestly feel like im going to collapse.

Is there any law or workplace safety regulation that states that an emloyer must get a lift fixed, if not having a lift is causing health and safety risks to employees.

I was trying to look it up last night but havent found anything specific yet. I would love to find something specific and show it to him

I cant prove it, but i think that he is stalling getting it fixed, because of the price to fix it.

I keep hearing him complain about the cost of getting the lift fixed.

I would suggest he probably hasn't ordered the part. I work in an office but it is over a hotel and the service lift has recently been broken, took the company 2 days to fix.

It is absolutely unreasonable to be expected to carry large bags of heavy linen up and down stairs...check the weights. Max single lift for a female is 15kg, but im not sure if that drops if you have to climb, I suspect it would. The HSE website would be the starting point and if not contact ACAS as they will be more familiar with the health and safety at work act. It's the document you need to start from.

I am a severe asthmatic so I could not walk up the equivalent of 40 flights of stairs. I would struggle to climb 2 flights carrying any sort of weight.

But say it is similiar to a hotel.
Heavy bags of linen need to be brought up to all of the floors, to change the beds. The bags are really heavy and we need a lot of them.

I realise customers weren't mentioned, but I wonder what they would think, if it's an issue ?

When situations like this arise, it's rarely in isolation. If there are more bags now involved I wonder about fire safety and obstructed exits ? What else has been skimped on. It costs money to ensure fire extinguishers are operational. It costs money to ensure Portable Appliance Testing is undertaken. Etc. Etc.

People are getting together and saying that they are going to refuse to do it anymore

Join those people and just refuse to do it.

He'll soon get it repaired.

If it's a hotel aren't the guests complaining?

I have a similar job, linen and other heavy supplies including food up and down six flights of stairs daily. But we cannot have a lift installed due to Listed building stays and costs. It is hard. My employer gets around this by asking us to split loads into smaller quantities and ask for help (no, there isn’t lots of free, able bodied staff just floating around!). The reality is this particular piece of work always falls to the younger, more energetic person - that’s currently me! I’m heading rapidly for 60. I do have admit I’ve got quicker, fitter and saved a fortune in gym fees.

But it’s allowed as it’s been risk assessed and adjustments have been catered for. So I suspect your employer will be allowed to kick getting the lift fixed into the future

Look up HSE and contact ACAS. I'm sure they need to do a risk/ health and safety assessment.

They haven't complained because the cleaning team and my department have been meeting the linen requirements so far.

But we did the extra heavy lifting, as he told us it wouldnt be long until the lift is fixed.

But the longer this has gone on, and everyone is fit to collapse, everyone is saying that they cant do it much longer.

I find the employers/ managers are fine for someone else to do it. But they wont do it themselves.

Me and my team were really suffering last week and i pointed out to another senion manager that we were suffering because he lift was still broken.

She said "oh is the lift still broken, i didnt know".

It didnt affect her, so she didnt even notice all the terrible suffering, that people are going through

But aren't they complaining about not having an elevator?

Yes they have complained.

He has told them the same thing, that he is waiting for a part.

Its not a hotel btw, i just used a similiar style building as an example

Oh im sorry this is happening to you.

Does your employer/ manager also carry stuff up and down the stairs?

You're very argumentative about it being a lot of stairs for the average person. You mean it is for you, since others are telling you it's not.

Maybe carrying things needs dealing with, but it sounds like you usually use the lift instead of just walking, which actually shouldn't be normal for the average person.

Are you in a Union?

The process you are being asked to use needs to be risk assessed. If you are injured, during work, it’s important to show that you raised it as an issue l before the incident happened, so make sure you put it in writing.

There are (unfortunately) people around .. a number have made an appearance on this thread … who think people shouod be grateful to be employed, and put up with shitty working conditions .. with a “doff your cap” attitude.

We won’t be going back to those days, thanks.

Im not even talking just about myself. I'm talking about other people's suffering at my workplace.

I am doing some of the heavy lifting of the linen to help out the cleaning team. I work in a different department but we were asked to help them as there is so much. And i have been trying to help the cleaning team

But i have other tasks to do, so i am not doing the brunt of the heavy lifting all morning

The cleaning team are.

I have seen their suffering every week, and it is awful. Especially in this heat.

They are red in the face. Several of them have told me that their heart is racing, that they are going to faint and pass out. One of them has hurt her knee , and is in pain, from the heavy lifting.

I feel like their is a bit of an attitude from the managers of "oh they are just cleaners, they are not real people"

I just feel awful looking at it

Do most people usually do four storeys without using the lift? I doubt it! And those that do aren't usually carrying heavy loads either.

I'm wondering how old some of the posters who think walking up 40 flights of stairs being ok are. In my 30's I could have done that but many of us are still working in our 60's and this would be too much for me now.
I think if this continues there will be many of your team taking sick leave. It would be a problem if many of you were off at the same time, the managers might have to step up themselves then or discover that paying for temporary cover cost more than repairing the lift.

The longer you do it for, the longer you will be expected to do it for. Can you get together with the rest of the staff and combine forces, and suggest that the company employ people to ferry the linen up and down the stairs, so you can do the job you're employed to do rather than spending all your shift in a stairwell?

Do you have set working hours, or do you stay until the tasks are done?

Edit, just ready your post re the cleaners. They need to combine forces and down tools I would say.

A similar thing happened in the care home my mother was in. The lift broke at the start of the summer and the factory which supplied the parts to repair it (at a cost of £10K) was closed for 6 weeks. Fixing the lift there was a huge job with residents stranded in their rooms for 6 weeks and staff up and down stairs with food, cleaning products, laundry all day long. It was a incredibly tough time for them but there was no alternative. There was no way the lift was going to remain unfixed but it was not possible to fix it for over two months.

If you are in some sort of hospitality or caring industry surely there will be regulations that ensure that customers or service users can access the place?

Why don't you apply to help them then, I,m sure they'll have plenty of vacancies soon

Omg that is awful and it sounds like my place.

Nightmare! It shows how dependant we are on lifts. Building should really have a back up second lift. Of course they probably wouldnt pay for that!

Did any staff complain or leave at that place?

See i think that care home was bullshitting and didnt want to pay for a while too.

There cant just be one factory that supplies the right lift parts surely.

I used to work in a different place. Anytime that the lift broke, they were able to fix it in three days. Every time

@Mitara My line manager will help us if asked, which I don’t like to do as she really does have some serious health issues with her legs. Our department boss is rarely seen and never helps when there. The chief boss doesn’t even know that so many floors exist and as for the accounts and hr departments….they aren’t even in the same site let alone know this particular building, its logistics or even the basics of my job even exist.
But then my particular job is seen by the higher echelons as easy and immerse to replace. Reality is we’ve been short staffed for years because no one wants to do the job! (And another reason why I don’t like to ask others for help - which they will, but we are all pushed to get the work done as it is)

Carrying things down stairs with both hands and vision obscured is a definite trip hazard. One of the more popular ways to die in Victorian England where housemaids were expected to carry full bags down without seeing the (invariably uneven) steps.