What are thehealth and safety concerns of a farmer employing workers?
According to the Central Statistical Office, in 2021 over 68,000 people were reported injured during work, of which 855 accidents concerned the agricultural industry. However, these figures did not include individual households, and most of the accidents occur in small households. According to KRUS data, in 2021 as many as 12,088 such events were reported, which translates into over 18% share of accidents in individual agriculture in the total number of events.
Agriculture belongs to the branches of production characterized by high accident rate, which is caused by the complex working environment. Due to the fact that the work of a farmer involves performing different activities at different workplaces, it requires different skills. We are talking about the need to use various machines, tools or the need to come into contact with animals. A significant impact on the intensity of threats is both the place of work, which is often exposed to changing weather conditions (field, livestock objects), the degree of mechanization and working time, which together generates an unprecedented number of threats in other professions.
According to KRUS data, as many as half of the accidents resulted from the fall of people (50.2%). Capture and impact by moving parts of devices accounted for 12.7 percent of events, while impact, crushing and biting by animals – 11.8 percent. Other causes of accidents include falling objects (5.4 per cent), contact with sharp tools and objects (4.4 per cent), impact and crushing by mechanically transported objects (2 per cent) and being run over, struck and caught by a means of transport in motion (1.4 per cent).
First of all, the farmer cannot allow him to perform the duties of an employee without a current medical certificate stating that there are no contraindications to work in a specific position and without current training in the field of OHS at work.
– Labour law, including health and safety, generally applies to employees. This does not mean, however, that they can be completely ignored towards other employees, because according to Civil Procedure Code Art. 304 §1, the employer is obliged to ensure safe and hygienic working conditions referred to in Art. 207 § 2 to natural persons performing work on a basis other than the employment relationship (i.e. e.g. on the basis of civil law contracts and agency contracts). However, the regulations do not determine how this obligation is to be implemented. For example, we have a job in which the degree of risks associated with working conditions or the course of processes is so significant that it is advisable that even for the ad hoc performance of these works or staying in these conditions, only natural persons with an appropriate state of health and safety and trained in occupational health and safety are allowed. This is what the employer or other entity organizing work may require from the person with whom he concludes a civil law contract – to undergo a medical examination or training in the field of health and safety. Then, pursuant to Art. 211 of the Labour Code, this person is obliged to undergo training and undergo medical examinations – adds the W&W Consulting OHS Specialist.
It is also the responsibility of the farmer as an employer to respond to the needs of ensuring health and safety at work and to adapt the measures taken to the existing level of protection of the health and life of workers. – This also entails the need to prevent accidents at work and occupational diseases through appropriate work organisation, taking into account, for example, the protection of the health of young people. It is also important to ensure the implementation of orders, decisions and orders issued by the authorities supervising working conditions and to ensure the implementation of any recommendations of the labor inspector – points out Joanna Misiun.
Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.