Safety Management on Dairy Farms: Owner and Manager Commitment

Details

• Personal Author:
  Douphrate D ; Reynolds S
• Description:
  In recent years, we have seen a heightened emphasis on worker safety on U.S. dairy farms. Dairy operations in the U.S. continue to have high worker injury and fatality rates as compared to general industry, as well as other agriculture production operations. As a result, local emphasis programs (LEPs) for programmed inspections of dairy farms in Wisconsin and New York have been established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in these two states. This Progressive Dairyman communication is the first of several articles addressing safety management and leadership on dairy farms. The fundamental tenet to any dairy farm safety program is that owners and managers must understand that the safety of employees is an integral part of doing business. Managers must accept the responsibility of stimulating awareness of safety among workers, and also demonstrate commitment to the safety of workers if those workers are expected to cooperate in making workplace conditions safe. Managers and supervisors must reflect this same interest in the safety of employees. Each manager and supervisor must assume responsibility for the safety of his or her own department and must be given the necessary authority to fulfill that obligation. A safety program must always start with owners and top management. Owners and managers must realize their injury problems and demand safe operations. Owners' and managers' attitudes toward injury prevention are almost invariably adopted by supervisors and employees. If owners and managers are not genuinely interested in preventing injuries, no one else on the dairy will likely be interested. Any injury control program, therefore, must start with the owner and manager with announced and demonstrated interest, if employee cooperation and participation are expected to be obtained. Owners or managers owe it to themselves and to their employees not only to promote safety and safe working environments, but also to provide a safety policy, implemented by rules that are enforced. Mere lip service, regardless of any motivational principle, will eventually undermine the program, which will lose its effectiveness. A prime requisite for any safety program is to leave no doubt in the minds of the dairy workers that management is concerned about the prevention of injuries on the farm. Owners' and managers' attitudes toward the safety of their employees must be demonstrated in the form of a written policy statement and made known to all levels of management and workers alike. This policy should outline the organization's aims and objectives for its safety program and should designate the authority and responsibilities for achieving them. The policy should be given wide publicity and should set the pace for both management and worker responsibilities to the program. The mechanism of delivery of this policy should be as important as the clarity with which it identifies functional authority and responsibility, especially given that the working population in the dairy industry is made up of low-literacy, non-English speaking workers. Description provided by NIOSH
• Subjects:
  • Animals
  • Cattle
  • Dairy Products
  • Livestock
  • Occupational Health
  • Safety
• Keywords:
  • Animals
  • Animal handlers
  • Livestock
  • Cattle industry
  • Dairy products
  • Safety programs
  • Safety education
  • Worker safety
  • Injury prevention
  • Management personnel
  More +
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article ; Lay Publication
• Place as Subject:
  Colorado ; New York ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 6 ; OSHA Region 8 ; Texas ; Wisconsin
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20052226
• Citation:
  Prog Dairyman 2014 Dec; :1-3
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• NORA Priority Area:
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Performing Organization:
  Colorado State University - Ft. Collins
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20030915
• Source Full Name:
  The Progressive Dairyman
• End Date:
  20270914
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/211787/cdc_211787_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 117.44 KB]
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:423e8c2902dd5864d06e60a6cd3eebdf10497e43fa999c97b5d34598eaf340046698f220df18347adbc83807ce4eb62bfcede7cc2142fa48c90de654252ff01c