Gloves and safety don’t always come to mind when you’re talking about various fasteners and the places they are used, but they should. Many workplaces must comply with OSHA safety requirements, depending on the type of work they do and the products they manufacture.
Regardless of the industries, applications, or products in which they are used, gloves for safety are designed for several different categories:
- Multi-purpose Designed to provide a balance of grip, dexterity, and oil-repellency for a variety of applications, including handling fasteners, HVAC and electronic component assembly, engine and transmission work, and more.
- Cut and puncture protection These gloves provide higher levels of penetration protection for applications such as metal component assembly in which workers handle sharp edges, including metal fabrication, sheet metal finishing, and mechanical component production.
- Oil-repellent Workers handling and assembling mechanical and electronic products and appliances often come in contact with a variety of lubricants from which they need to protect their skin.
- Special purpose Applications such as electronics production often require workers to work in anti-static environments and clean room or semi-clean room conditions that demand gloves with low lint and other special properties. For small electronics assembly, it is especially important to have ESD-safe gloves with exceptional tactile sensitivity that enable workers to handle tiny components and small fasteners such as nuts and bolts.
Gloves and safety go hand-in-hand (pardon the pun) – first and foremost to protect workers from injury – but also to provide a safe and reliable work environment that minimizes liability issues and risk that can, in turn, disrupt production, affect product quality, and ultimately hurt sales.
By paying attention to proper safety procedures and attire such as work gloves, employers can help keep the workplace safe, workers happy and productive, and business humming. Gloves and safety – always a state of mind that can pay off in big ways.