biggriffin:
Juddian:
Get a large pack of disposables, you know, the ■■■■■ latex jobbies used for cavity searches etc (so i’m told 
), fill up with fuel and bin 'em, 100 pairs equals 100 fill ups.
Unless you’re self employed the company should be providing suitable PPE anyway.
Yup… Go into workshop, ask for box full.
Agreed.
The thing with diesel is that it’s a known skin irritant on regular exposure (there is also some evidence of it being carcinogenic, but that evidence is considered ambiguous). Ordinary leather gloves are good enough if the nozzle is kept clean (by normal driver discipline, and regular routine cleaning by the pump owner), but otherwise they’d have to provide disposable gloves, paper towels, and a bin.
One thing about being “self-employed”. The company that controls the pumps and instructs you to use them must still ensure that the PPE is being provided, and have systems in place to ensure that it is available and used in the process.
You can’t just waltz onto a chemical site in beachwear, and the site shrug their shoulders and say you should know what the hazards are and have your own PPE because you’re self-employed.
Who is ultimately responsible for the cost of PPE is a completely different question to who is responsible for ensuring that the PPE is actually provided and used, which is the person who controls the site, the hazardous equipment which requires special PPE, or who stands in a position of authority to the man in instructing him to use the equipment.
I would guess site owners can levy a charge on site against self-employed men for disposable gloves if they wished to, but they must still ensure that the PPE is actually available and used, and that they are not behaving in ways likely to induce people to disobey the rules.
For example, if a site gets hardline and threatens to send people away or sanction their pay if they disclose that they don’t have gloves, or are attempting to levy a charge in circumstances where most can’t or would likely refuse to pay for them, but still allows people to operate on site without them (for example, if they ask a driver to declare that he has them on entry, but do not check). If they create an incentive to disobey the rules or deal with untrustworthy contractors, they are then obliged by the law to implement more stringent checks, which costs staff time.
The reason the law is structured that way is to ensure that bosses organise work in a manner that encourages and promotes safety in practice, rather than in a way which encourages an evasion of legal liability (e.g. by writing in contracts with fly-by-night contractors that gloves need to be provided, but then not actually checking and enforcing that on site).
