Accident rate up for farm workers
Farm workers are more likely to have serious accidents than the people they work for, Worksafe New Zealand’s figures show.
For every 1000 employees such as farm assistants and labourers in the agricultural sector, 20 suffered an injury requiring more than a week off work compared with 12 out of every 1000 farmers or contractors. The time period was for April 2012 to March 2015.
WorkSafe’s agriculture sector leader Al McCone said the lesson to be taken from the statistics was that farmers and contractors needed to communicate better with their employees so they were aware of risks on farms. ’’A simple way to positively change the culture is to get workers more involved with farm decisions around health and safety. It’s the workers who are out there in the paddock or shed seeing first-hand what the conditions and potential risks are.’’
Whereas the dairy industry employed the most workers, 80 per cent of sheep and beef farmers were owner operators. Any accident that caused a worker to be off work for more than a week was considered a serious one. WorkSafe had introduced the category of Week Away From Work (WAFW) to reflect the gravity of the injury. ’’Risks such as handling large animals, visiting vehicles and large machinery will always be there, and need to be continually re-assessed and addressed,’’ said McCone. ’’Then there are risks that change daily ... such as weather conditions or different seasonal work. It might have been safe to take the farm bike up that hill yesterday when it was dry, but it may not be today if the grass is wet.’’
Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff said the Government needed to admit farming was a dangerous occupation, which it had not for legislative purposes. He said noone was advocating for workers because they were not unionised, but farmers would not take kindly to the idea of them being organised.