Car Manufacturing Workers at High Risk of Serious Injury
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Compensation Claim Advice for Car Manufacturing Workers
You may be surprised at what risks you face by working in a car production factory. From persistent back problems to sudden accidents, a lot of things could happen to you at work.
Of course, some injuries are more likely than others.
This doesn’t mean that nothing can and should be done about them, though.
Who can Claim Compensation for Injury
Whether you’re still in work or have had to leave your job because of your injuries, you should be compensated for your pain and suffering.
You might even be an employee of one of the well-known car manufacturers planning to remove their factory from the UK, and have an injury or work related condition you haven’t wanted to say anything about until now.
If you’re suffering from injuries and you think they’ve been caused or made worse by your work, our industrial disease solicitors can help you.
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If you have suffered injury or illness at your place of work we can help you claim compensation.
What Job Roles Will Be Affected?
In a car manufacturing company there are a countless number of of job roles.
No matter what your role is, you are likely performing a lot of repetitive tasks which can cause long-term injuries.
This repetition puts you at a high risk of serious injury which can affect you for a long time.
You might suffer from a bad back, shoulder injuries, tennis or golfers elbow or knee injuries, which can seriously affect what jobs you can do now and in the future, and how you live your life.
For example, your back pain might stop you from enjoying activities with your children. Just imagine, you come home from a long day at work and your back is really hurting. Your child runs towards you but you can’t even pick them up because you’re in so much pain.
Your work shouldn’t have such a negative impact on your personal life.
If you work in manufacturing, engineering, general labouring, maintenance, logistics, or as a fabricator, picker, welder, sprayer, finisher, packing line worker or machine operator, you could be at risk.
If you have one of the following job roles, or similar, you’re at risk of developing or might have already developed an injury:
- Warehouse Operative – might do a lot of pulling, pushing, and heavy lifting
- Production or Assembly Line Worker – as this might involve a lot of repetitive work
- Production Team Member – might do paint spraying or fixing parts to the frame of the car
In every part of a car manufacturing factory there are jobs which are high risk for injury, but these can be prevented if your employer takes the correct precautions.
Unfortunately this doesn’t always happen and we’ve seen many cases of negligent employers causing workplace injuries.
Does this sound familiar to you?
Types of Injuries You Might Have
Because there are a lot of different job roles within a car manufacturing company, there are also a lot of different injuries you could suffer from.
For example, you may suffer from one or multiple of the following:
- Back problems
- Tennis elbow
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Shoulder strain and injuries
- Knee injuries
- Golfers elbow
These injuries might seem like nothing at first, but they’re usually very painful and only get more so the longer they’re left.
You might think – or be told – that these types of injuries are just a part of the job, but actually they can really damage you in the long run.
Most injuries sustained whilst working in car manufacturing job roles are repetitive strain injuries.
This happens when a part of your body is strained from doing the same motion or action over and over again.
An example of a repetitive strain injury might be a bad shoulder or a painful elbow which might occur from overuse of these limbs. You could also suffer from a back injury from lifting heavy items over time.
Or, if your job is to work on the lower part of cars you might be crouched down or on your knees for a lot of the time.
This might lead to knee injuries which can be really painful and even stop you working.
Injuries at work shouldn’t be normalised, and it’s your employer’s responsibility to stop them from happening by ensuring that machinery is functioning properly, you get enough breaks and that people are rotated often enough.
Failure to rotate staff between different job roles increases the risk of a repetitive strain injury happening to you.
Repetitive strain injuries can be life changing. Our solicitors are here to help you claim compensation.
How Can the Injuries Affect Your Life?
A bad back or a dodgy wrist might seem like nothing, but if you continue to work and strain the injured part of your body, it’ll only get worse.
This can leave you with pain and suffering for a long time.
The pain might get so bad that you have to take time off work.
Losing out on wages because of an injury caused at work is ironic for one, but also unfair on you.
You shouldn’t be forced to worry about money because of an injury which isn’t your fault.
If your employer is responsible for your pain, they should be held accountable.
Not only does a work-related injury have the potential to cause you financial stress, but it also may have an impact on your life outside of work.
You might not be able to enjoy sports or leisure activities like you usually would.
What Your Employer Should Do
Whatever role you have in the factory, you’ll likely be doing a lot of hard manual labour in one day.
You should be rotated into different roles, but unfortunately employers don’t always make this possible.
You should be given adequate tools and training to do the job.
Every twelve months a risk assessment should be done in all areas of a car manufacturing factory.
A lot of companies either:
- Don’t complete the risk assessment when they should
- Don’t take action on findings and resolve problems
If you believe that your employer has failed to do one of the above you should report them to the Health and Safety Executive.
Not paying attention to the necessity of risk assessments can put people like you in serious danger.
Your employer should also take you seriously if you get injured, and should take appropriate steps to prevent your injury from getting worse.
If your employer failed to provide you with a safe work environment and you got injured as a result, we can help.
What You Can Do
Because working in a factory is very physical, you and your colleagues might be tempted to shrug your injuries off as just a part of the job.
You shouldn’t do this – you don’t have to live in pain.
Back, knee, wrist, shoulder and elbow injuries can all end up with you needing surgery or affecting you for life if nothing is done about them.
If you’re injured and in pain because of something happening at work, your first port of call should be your GP.
They’ll be able to tell you what type of injury you have, how it happened and what you should do about it:
Say you had a bad back from lifting, you might go to the doctor and tell them that you often lift heavy items at work and have done for a while.
They will usually tell you that you need to refrain from lifting since that’s probably the reason for your injury.
You can also go to the occupational health department in your workplace, who will assess you in the same way your GP did.
This allows you to document your injury within the workplace and outside of it.
Claiming Against Your Workplace
If your workplace is already aware of your problems and makes no effort to make your job safer, you might want to make a claim against them.
It might seem daunting, but if they’ve caused you pain and suffering, the least you deserve is to be compensated.
Our industrial disease solicitors have extensive experience with people just like you, who have worked in the car manufacturing industry and have become injured as a result of their job.
Making a claim can not only compensate you for pain and suffering, but also for any loss of earnings.
We’ve had clients who have had to take months off work because of an injured shoulder, and even some who have had to stop working completely or change their line of work and retrain, costing them thousands.
You shouldn’t have to pay for that out of your own pocket when it’s not your fault you’re having to do it in the first place. You also shouldn’t have to worry about money when taking time off.
That’s why we’re here to help you. Companies – especially the big players – often treat their employees unfavourably when it comes to injuries at work, but no more.
We want to be on your side, helping you overcome your injury without it having too much of a further impact on your life.
Contact us today on 0800 999 2220 or use the contact form to get in touch today.
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