Posts Tagged ‘hazards’

High hazards, gruesome deaths; farm worker safety programs facing cuts

Wednesday, July 19th, 2017

Farm work is dangerous work. Injuries and fatalities are gruesome – amputations, death by being caught in machinery or rolled over by tractors; drownings in manure pits; suffocation in grain bins. More than 5,000 agricultural workers in the U.S. died on the job between 2003 and 2011, a death rate that OSHA puts at seven times higher than average.

The Idaho Statesman recently featured a troubling but excellent story by Audrey Dutton on two workers who drown in manure pits, a well-known fatality risk in agriculture. While all farm workers face risks – including child workers – the high fatality rate is worsened by the high rates of immigrant workers – both legal and illegal – who may have a poor grasp of English, or who are reluctant to make waves, particularly with the recent ICE crackdowns. These While many farms are good to their workers, there are also many who exploit them.

“We would characterize those employees as vulnerable workers,” said Jordan Barab, who was deputy assistant secretary of OSHA in the Obama administration and now writes Confined Space, a newsletter about worker safety. “Some of them are undocumented, but even those who are documented have come from other countries where, let’s say, the government is not friendly.”

These workers tend to be suspicious of government and unaware that OSHA exists or that they have rights. A complaint can put them at risk of getting fired or deported, Barab said.

“This is a group OSHA has a hard time reaching,” he said.

At Sunrise Organic Dairy in Jerome County, workers did not know about OSHA and were concerned about working near the manure pit the winter Vazquez-Carrera died, according to someone who knew him, who asked not to be identified because of fear of retribution.

In addition to immigrant and non-English speaking workers, children are another vulnerable population at high risk of injury on farms. Small farms – particularly family farms – are unregulated because OSHA cannot inspect farms of 10 or fewer non-family workers, even when fatalities occur. Plus, many of the recordkeeping rules that OSHA was implementing have been rolled back, meaning that many injuries and deaths will continue falling under the radar. These statistics are important for targeting agricultural safety and prevention programs, as well as for targeting enforcement efforts.

OSHA programs are cash-strapped and about to be even more so. Jordan Barab of Confined Space documents how the House budget devastates OSHA and MSHA enforcement. Having served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor at OSHA from 2009 to 2017, he should know.

In addition to enforcement cuts, many prevention programs will be affected – here’s a concrete example: Farm safety funding could be uprooted. The article talks about rollovers, which are the top cause of farm injury and death. But under the president’s proposed budget, one of the key prevention programs – National ROPS (rollover protection system) Rebate Program – would be hurt by budget cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

In the abstract, cutting regulations and federal budgets can seem like a good idea, but they can have real world health and safety implications. We don’t think worker safety or public health should be on the chopping block. These investments are often a cheap dollar. Measured in either lives or dollars, we earn incalculable savings through the prevention efforts of the Centers for Disease Control, OSHA and NIOSH. Earlier this year, the $11 million Chemical Safety Board was scheduled for elimination, but after much public outcry, the House budget calls for CSB funding to be restored.

 

Related: Agriculture Health & Safety

Lost Both Arms and a Leg: Life and Death for Farmworkers

Walking down the grain … and the fines

Grain Bin Safety

Call to action for teen farmworker safety: Two boys lose legs in OK grain bin auger accident

A survivor’s story: Iowa teen advocates for farm safety after her near-fatal encounter with a power take-off shaft

NIOSH – Agriculture Safety

National Farmers Union – safety videos and practices

Cool work safety tool from WorkSafeBC – “What’s wrong with this photo?”

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

Remember playing those “what’s wrong with this picture” games in activity books when you were a kid? Well WorkSafe BC has adapted the concept as a safety tool. Every issue of WorkSafe Magazine includes a photo that has been staged to show at least six hazards or dangerous work habits – you can interact with the photo to position pushpins on identified hazards, describe the hazards, and then submit your response to WorkSafeBC for a possible prize (although it’s likely that only B.C. residents are eligible). In each issue, they include the winning entry from the last issue, along with responses from other readers. Neat.
One of the really cool and useful things is that they keep an archive of all past photos online – you can either take the challenge online and then check the answer key, or you can print the photos and the answer keys and use them in safety meetings or toolbox talks.
Here’s one example: Can you spot the safety hazards in this commercial kitchen? Note: the image below is only a sample pic – the online interactive version is accessible at Kitchen Safety and here’s the commercial kitchen answer key to check your responses.
WorkSafeBC
Archived “What’s wrong with this photo” tools
There’s a pretty good array of work scenarios representing a variety of industries. Here are direct links to each:

Cavalcade of Risk and assorted noteworthy news items from the blogosphere

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Check out this week’s Cavalcade of Risk, which is hosted by Nina Kallen, a Massachusetts attorney who runs the blog Insurance Coverage Law in Massachusetts. These carnivals are a good way to discover new blogs and we are happy to discover this one, right in our own backyard.
Flammable Ice Cream – an interesting Loss Prevention case study from Liberty Mutual that addresses the issue of flammable liquid hazards in unexpected place.
America’s Best Hospitals RankedComplex Care Blog offers links to the recent rankings, as well as an interesting video on thinking differently about health care from the Mayo Clinic.
Beneath the Bell Jar: Companies Confront a Rise in Workplace Suicides – Emily Holbrook looks at this tough issue in the November issue of Risk Management.
Employee whistleblower protections in food new safety law – at Today’s Workplace, attorney Jason Zuckerman discusses the robust whistleblower protections included in the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which are included to ensure that workers can disclose food safety concerns without fear of reprisal. He offers a detailed overview of the provisions.
Update on OSHA’s worker safety in construction efforts – OSHA Deputy Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab’s keynote speech, which was delivered at the Building Trades Employers’ Association of New York 2010 Safety Conference.
TSA Brings Problems on Itself – we discussed TSA employee stress earlier in the week. Workplace human behavior consultant and author Aubrey Daniels suggests that better attention to service and training might go a long way to reducing traveler tension – and would also, no doubt, make things easier for the screeners themselves.
Fatal occupational injuries at road construction sites, 2003-07 (PDF) – a report recently issued by the Monthly Labor Review, which analyzes trends and circumstances around the fatalities.
Remote Workers Need More Than Cookie-Cutter Safety Strategies – from Risk and Insurance, a discussion on telecommuting workers and an approach to keep them safe.

Two farmworking teens killed in silo; media is mystified

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

From Michigan, we learn the tragic news of the silo-related deaths of two teens on a farm. Victor Perez, 18, was a recent high school graduate who had worked on the farm for about 4 years. His co-worker Francisco Mendez Martinez, 17, had been on the job for about a month.
News reports are thin and shrouded in mystery. One refers to the fatalities as a “mishap” (talk about understatement) and quotes a local farmworker as saying that the teens “weren’t doing something particularly dangerous and they knew how to do it.” (Apparently wrong on both counts). Other stories portray this as “just a tragic accident” with authorities quoted as saying they might never be sure what happened because there were no witnesses.
We should really expect better reporting from media whose beat includes farm country. And if the news reports are correct, there is at least one other local farm worker who needs to be alerted to silo dangers and the quoted sheriff needs to take an EMT refresher course.
A cursory Google search on silo deaths will show that there’s nothing particularly mysterious about this “mishap” – unsupervised teen workers + confined space + silos + molasses storage – all should trigger red lights. The danger posed to teens of confined spaces in agriculture should be well known. Instead of breathless reporting about mysterious tragedies (see also “freak accidents“), media could do a huge service to local communities if they did a little research and used such horrific events as a springboard to educate people about a) safety for a high-risk group, teen workers and b) farm worker accident prevention.
The hazards associated with silos are well-recognized. One cited in this link might have been a description of the recent that killed the teens:

The typical scenario involves a worker entering an oxygen-deficient or toxic atmosphere and collapsing. Co-workers notice the collapsed worker and enter the same atmosphere and attempt a rescue; however, if they do not use proper precautions (respirators, ventilator fans, etc.), they also collapse.

Additional resources
Confined Space Hazards a Threat to Farmers
Dangerous Gases and Fires Can Make Silos Death Traps
Silo Gas Dangers
Silo Gas Dangers – from Farm Safety
Preventing Deaths of Farm Workers in Manure Pits
Confined Space Hazards
OSHA: Confined Space
Parental Alert: 2010’s Five Worst Teen Jobs