Occupational injuries, illnesses and fatalities in California agriculture take a toll in human suffering every year. According to information compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and published by AgSafe (a non-profit coalition of ag employers concerned with health and safety in agriculture), nearly 20,000 workers suffer injuries that result in missing one or more days of work and 42 persons are killed each year working in California agriculture. Currently agriculture ranks fourth among state industries in occupational fatalities. Unfortunately, the death and injury rates in agriculture have remained consistently high over the years in comparison to most other industries. The majority of injuries are caused by being struck by something, overexertion, and falls. Despite popular perceptions of the dangers involved in pesticide use and the issuance of EPA's Worker Protection Standard requiring that every fieldworker be given pesticide safety training prior to entering treated fields, pesticide toxins only account for about 5% of non-fatal and fatal injuries. Poultry, livestock, and dairy tend to have the highest injury rates per worker in the industry while vegetable and tree crops have the greatest number of accidents.
Occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities are costly to workers and employers. Injured workers face the cost of human suffering and lost wages. Employers lose money in a variety of ways: an increase in the cost of medical and workers' compensation insurance including Cal/OSHA fines and inspection visits if an employer's experience modification rating exceeds 1.25; loss of productivity; increased staff time to investigate the incident; cost of recruiting, hiring, and training a replacement worker; and damage caused to produce and equipment.
According to a recent research report sponsored by California Agricultural Technology Institute (CATI) and the Center for Agricultural Business (CAB) at California State University Fresno, the National Safety Council estimates the cost of a disabling injury at $27,000 per incident and the cost of a work-related death at $780,000. These figures include the cost of lost wages, medical expenses, and employer costs, and exclude costs of property damage except to motor vehicles. According to the study, by multiplying these costs by the number of disabling injuries and deaths that occur each year in California agriculture, the figure is impressive. More than $800 million a year is lost in California agriculture by job-related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
In California as elsewhere, the insurance rating is a combination of the pure premium rate (decided on by the Insurance Board and set by industry) and the experience modification rating (which involves several other factors in its computation, one of them being actual loss experience in the last three years). The pure premium rate is fixed and cannot be changed by an individual farm but instead is computed across a particular industry. In the California dairy industry, for example, the pure premium rate is 8.34% of payroll for 1997. The experience modification rating, and its various parts, are what we then have to work with (ranges from 1.1% to 5.4% of payroll). The experience modification rating can have a significant impact upon the employer's bottom line as it relates to workers' compensation.
A 1990 survey by the Agricultural Health and Safety Center at UC Davis found lower accident rates associated with growers who have a stable workforce. Seasonal employees returning to work year after year result in greater job familiarity and stable supervisory relationships. Growers who provided health insurance to their full-time year-round employees reported lower farm injury rates. Workers were probably less likely to file a workers' compensation claim for a non-work-related injury if they had insurance to cover medical costs. However, in this case the costs may outweigh the benefits. Some growers considered a thorough hiring process to be the first step in their safety programs: "You have to make sure you get and keep good healthy people right from the start," a local grower said. I could not agree more. Selecting the right people and reinforcing what is important to the farm through an organized employee orientation at the very beginning of employment will go a long way towards reducing worker injuries and time off work.
An estimated 80-90% of all accidents result from human error. Many accidents can be prevented. Since 1991, the state of California has mandated that employers have a written Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) that is centrally located on the farm. The program must contain eight elements: responsibility, worker compliance (training, evaluating, disciplining), hazard communication, hazard assessment, accident investigation, hazard correction, instruction, and record keeping. But simply having a written plan is not good enough. The employer must identify a person by name with the responsibility and authority for safety and health in the company. Also, the employer must have written documentation that the plan is being implemented. Implementation evidence includes written information detailing safety inspections, safety incident investigations, and records of safety training sessions. By documenting safety training, some of the legal liability resulting from accidents is transferred from the employer to the worker involved. Cal/OSHA includes a list of possible training topics such as:
But is informing workers of safe practices and keeping adequate records sufficient enough to lessen work-related injuries and their associated costs? What does experience and research in the field of personnel management tell us about the effectiveness of this type of informational safety training?
Generally, it has been found that this type of training is only modestly helpful in reducing worker injuries and workers' compensation costs. It is obvious that merely informing employees how to work safely does not mean that workers will put that knowledge into use. There is often a gap between what we know and how we perform on the job. Many times training will not transfer from the "classroom" to the job. The different methods used by supervisors for ensuring employee safety recognition can have a large impact on the success of a safety program. Let me give you an alternative method and an example from research.
As stated above, most progressive farmers and packers use standard safety slogans and signs and hold safety meetings on occasion where they inform or re-inform workers how to work safely when performing different tasks. However, instead of simply telling the workers how to stay safe, much of which they already know from previous training sessions, the manager should identify (from past experience, observations, and asking the workers) the most risky types of work activities. Then, observe the workers for brief periods of time to get an idea of how many and what types of unsafe acts are actually occurring.
Next, workers should be shown how to correctly perform the most difficult tasks in a training session and then practice what they have learned. In the days after training, randomly observe the workers again to see if they are performing the tasks correctly. Then, instead of posting slogans or messages on how to safely perform a task on the walls or fence, the supervisor posts a chart once a week showing the workers how many unsafe acts were observed for the different tasks against the number of pre-training observations. The supervisor should keep posting charts on a weekly basis even after observing "zero" problems for the week in order to regularly let employees know how safely they are performing in their jobs. Hopefully the number of unsafe acts will have decreased after training. If someone is seen still performing a task in an unsafe manner, explain why the action is unsafe, how to do it safely, and the consequences if he or she does not. Perhaps more training is needed, a progressive discipline policy should be enacted, or the use of safety incentives could be added. Along with verbal praise and corrections, this type of communication gives the workers a specific goal to strive for and provides a direct and immediate evaluation as to what tasks they are doing incorrectly, what they are doing right, and what they or the supervisor should do to correct the situation.
An excellent study conducted in a small poultry processing facility investigated whether reinforcing one group of workers with the standard informational safety training was as effective as using the charting method with a separate but similar group. The researchers found few differences between the standard training and no training at all, but found dramatic reductions in injuries and workers' compensation costs associated with the charted training.
Regardless of training method or content, it is clear that all three segments of the agricultural operation -- owners, foremen, and workers -- must "buy into" safety if any program is to be successful. Safety management must come from the top down and all workers need to participate if injuries and illnesses are to be prevented. While training for managers and workers is instrumental to safe farm and packing operations, so is good personnel management more generally.
For further information about safety management issues contact the Butte County office. For more information regarding AgSafe, the employer coalition for health and safety in agriculture, contact Don Bennett at any of the following addresses:
AgSafe
P.O. Box 630
Murphys, CA 95247-0630
(209) 728-2466
Fax: (209) 728-9466
Email: agsafe@goldrush.com
Website: http://www.agsafe.org
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The ALRA
The California State Legislature enacted the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) in 1975 to " . . . ensure peace in the agricultural fields by guaranteeing justice for all agricultural workers and stability in labor relations." Provisions of the Act were designed to protect rights of farm workers to act together to help themselves, to engage in union organizational activity, and to select their own representatives to bargain with employers. They prohibit employers and unions from interfering with these rights. These rights and prohibitions are similar to those that the National Labor Relations Act had provided 40 years earlier to most private sector employees, explicitly not including farm workers.
The Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), a five-member panel appointed by the governor, is the only agency with authority to supervise and certify union petitioning elections. Over the last fifteen years the number of elections conducted and certified by the ALRB has diminished significantly, following a national trend away from union participation. However, a few recent events, the United Parcel Service strike and the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) organizing efforts in the coastal strawberry industry, have spurred new interest and concern. Additionally, the ALRB recently issued a rare decision that strikes a little closer to home in Sonoma County.
In Gallo Vineyards, 23 ALRB 7 (1997), the Board in a 3-1 decision ordered Gallo to "make-whole" its employees for the period September 12, 1995, through December 9, 1996, and extended the UFW's certification as bargaining representative for Gallo employees until February 10, 1998. The "make-whole" remedy awards workers monetary compensation for their employer's failure to bargain with an elected labor union in good faith. Because the typical effect of bargaining in bad faith is to delay a wage increase, the make-whole remedy is designed to reimburse employees for pay they would have received if not for the delay. The ALRB averages wages of similar employees who have negotiated collective bargaining agreements in the past or uses numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and then factors in the value of fringe benefits if applicable. The calculated "make-whole" wage is subtracted from the wages and benefits actually paid to the workers, and then the award is distributed to the workers who were employed during the period of "failure to bargain in good faith."
Let me provide a summary of what happened in this particular case. In mid July 1994, the UFW petitioned for an election among 114 farm workers on five Gallo ranches in Sonoma County. In order for a union election to be held, at least 50% of the employer's peak workforce must be present. Gallo asked the ALRB to reject the petition because their present employment was not yet 50% of the estimated peak level that would occur annually in September. On July 26, 1994, the ALRB supervised the election anyway (as the prior year's peak was only 175) in which 107 farm workers voted 81 to 21 to have the UFW represent them.
The following year, the ALRB certified the UFW as bargaining agent and Gallo appealed to a California Superior Court arguing that the election should not have been held and provided their own peak employment numbers for that year as evidence. However the court said that Gallo should have, but failed, to provide the ALRB with these numbers before the election, and the appeal was denied. Gallo further tested the ALRB's certification decision by taking the case to the Stanislaus County Superior Court. In March of 1995, this court ordered the ALRB to withdraw union certification, and then the ALRB appealed. In August of 1996, the 5th District Court of Appeals in Fresno reversed the Stanislaus County decision and upheld the ALRB's right to certify the UFW as the elected union. The Court of Appeals said that an election is presumed to be valid unless the employer demonstrates in a timely fashion that the current employment level is not 50% of peak. In December of last year, the Supreme Court refused to hear Gallo's appeal. The ALRB ordered the make-whole remedy because they felt that Gallo's appeals were simply a delay tactic in dealing with the UFW.
What a mess. The details, taken here from Rural Migration News (published by Philip Martin, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of California, Davis), help to provide some information regarding how the ALRB and the unionization process works. Additionally, this case gives some insight (and possibly headaches) as to what might be involved in these matters when dealing with the judicial system. Today in the Sacramento Valley, I do not believe that unionization represents a primary concern of employers, nor should it. However, it probably makes sense to be active in maintaining good employee relationships and to keep abreast of current events and how they may impact upon your business relationships.
For further information regarding the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the ALRB, and union activities, check out the ALRB page on the APMP website at: http://are.Berkeley.edu/APMP/, or you can call/fax the Butte County office for more information. Additionally, an educational videotape by the APMP taken from our Monterey County seminar this summer should be made available early next year.
TIPP
Under the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), the Labor Commissioner's office has 300 employees to enforce labor laws in the state. The office hopes to expand the Targeted Industries Partnership Program, or TIPP, that begun in 1993 but may shift some of the TIPP resources now used in agriculture to another industry. Since 1993, TIPP has inspected over 4,400 agricultural and garment work places, mostly in the San Joaquin Valley and southern California, and assessed $20 million in fines against employers.
Ergonomics Update
Concerning ergonomic hazards, the Sacramento Superior Court listened to challenges against the new standard, Ergonomics 5110, on September 5, 1997. The hearings resulted in a standard that appears to be stricter than before. The new state regulation enforced by Cal/OSHA now applies to all employers (previously only applied to employers with ten or more workers) and the "undue economic hardship" clause has been removed. Employers must now provide training, restructure job tasks, or modify the work environment if two repetitive motion type injuries occur in a single year regardless of economic hardship to the company.
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Recently, I sent out introductory letters and reply cards throughout the six-county area of Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Sutter/Yuba, and Tehama. I appreciate all those of you who have filled out the cards and returned them to the Butte County office. I apologize for a few multiple mailings and for the several people who were already on my Butte County mailing list that received a card. Steps were taken to eliminate mailing redundancies and reduce costs but the system was not perfect.
For the most recent newsletter subscribers, I have included here a listing of subjects that were briefly (and not so briefly) dealt with in my prior three newsletters. The letters have been slightly revised and anyone who would like free copies may request them by calling, writing, or faxing the Butte County office.
July 1997...
New Employee Orientations
Supervisors Make a Difference in Safety
Working with Contracted Labor
Personnel: Beyond Compliance
August 1997...
Hiring the Right People: Introducing a Free Guide to Structured Interviewing
Where's and Why's of Personnel Records
Ergonomics Standard and Assessment Checklist
September 1997...
Conflict Mediation for Supervisors
Workplace Violence Prevention
Ag's Role in Welfare-to-Work Plans
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