Work Safety - Edition 2014
Concise cards of major risks in agricultural activity

1 General fulfilment - Card 01.02 Workers' duties

PRACTICAL AND OPERATING INDICATIONS:

 

Operator shall contribute to enforce the norms provided for protecting safety of every Farm employee.

 

Operator shall follow the Employer's instructions and the indications of safety officers.

 

Operator shall use correctly equipment, machines, substances, dangerous compounds, transports and safety devices. It is forbidden to carry out operations or manoeuvres on his/her own initiative which are not within his/her province or which could compromise each and every workers' safety.

 

Operator shall efficiently use protection devices provided by the Employer, and careful y follow his/her instructions about how and when using them.

 

Operator shall immediately inform the Employer when operating devices or P.P.E. are not working correctly. Furthermore if a hazardous situation occurs, worker shall try to limit/avoid damages only if he/she knows how to act without risking to cause further problems. In any way, he/she must inform the Employer.

 

Safety, signal or control devices must neither be modified nor removed. Only when the machine is stopped for maintenance, people with technical knowledge can act provided that, when the machine works again, it is integral and complete with safety systems.

 

Operator shall attend informative and formative meetings and training courses organised by the Employer. These are never a waste of time!

 

Operator shall go and see the Company Physician (if he/she is present) for the established periodic health examinations.

 

If salaried or self-employed worker performs activities out of his/her own premises (contract or subcontract), he/she shall have an identity card complete with photograph, work particulars and name of the Employer. This card is provided by the Employer himself.

 

In particular, the CCNL for agricultural workers and nursery-gardening (25/05/2010) indicates that:

 

In nursery-gardening, workers who carry out tasks which presents harmful factors must limit to 4 hours their execution. Their retribution wil not be interrupted during the 2 hours and 20 minutes brake, and for the rest of the day nursery gardeners wil take on other "normal" farm works. See provincial Contracts for the reduction of working hours.

 

Workers harvesting on trees are considered as agricultural ones, also in relation to the insurance against accident at work and occupational disease.

 

As far as the provincial bargaining concerns, it is fixed that:

• activities characterized by harmfulness factors shall be identified, and the personnel turnover and other measures in defence of the worker shall be defined;
• conditions of the periodical medical examination of the workers who take on tasks which present harmfulness factors shall be defined;
• methods to join training courses about health protection and ecological recovery shall be identified. Each worker has 30 hours leave with pay for the following of the courses over 3 years.

 

FURTHER INDICATIONS AND ADVICE

• If a worker is not sure of how to perform a manoeuvre, he/she must ask for advice.
• Operator shall ask the Employer to place technical machine and equipment handbooks and the security sheets of hazardous products at every worker's disposal.
• Operator must be concentrated on the task he/she is carrying on during working time, without distracting his/her attention from it, and he/she must not be over-confident.
• Operator shall strive to collaborate and learn from anyone who wants to improve the working method.
• Operator shall try to be helpful and give useful hints if somebody does not work in the right way.
• Worker shall not be afraid of reporting if somebody is not working in the proper way: he/she could harm him/herself or other people.
• Operator shall respect the advice of much more experienced people.