FOREWORD

 

The need and urge of a wide spread of safety culture in the agroindustrial, and in the agricultural sector particularly, had been the motivations for the constitution of EBARER (Emilia Romagna Regional Agricultural Bilateral Body), a derivative contract association. The regional agricultural social parts - Confagricoltura, Coldiretti, CIA and Emilia Romagna’s FAI FLAI UILA - decided to found EBARER in order to plan and introduce informative and training initiatives in all the farms and for both salaried and self-employed workers (in accordance with the law: the former Legislative Decree 626 before, and the former Legislative Decree 81 now).

 

This publication is our first goal, and it was realised as part of the “Work Safety in the Rural Sector” project thanks to the Emilia Romagna INAIL (National Institution for Insurance against Accidents at Work). The Institution stated that the idea of the book was perfectly coherent with the objectives specified within the “Prevention Regional Plan”, particularly because it encourages the spread of key topics, such as safety at work, with the workers of the regional rural sector.

 

The project sets in the context of the steps provided for by the Protocol signed on the 7th May 2010 together with Alessandro Crisci, INAIL Regional Director of Emilia Romagna. Its goal is to achieve the participation of INAIL and EBARER in the definition of a Sector Plan for Prevention and its related annual intervention programmes in order to higher the qualitative levels of the prevention system in agriculture.

 

For the project realisation, EBARER has involved all the provincial Casse Extra-legem, which are of contractual nature, whose rules are part and parcel of work provincial contracts. These Casse completed 50 years of experience and were born to guarantee the incoming support for illness, accident and other assistance to agricultural workers through mutuality among farms. In the list below the user is going to find pure reality of the territory bilateral expressions of the provincial agricultural world social parts whose task is to answer agricultural workers’ needs through welfare contract intervention:

  • FEIALAPP (Found for the Allotment of Redundancy and Other Various Assistance to Agricultural Workers from Piacenza Province),
  • CIM (Parma Accident and Illness Found),
  • IMI Committee (Reggio Emilia Accident and Illness Found),
  • CIIMLA (Accident and Illness Redundancy Found for Modena Agricultural Workers),
  • CIMAAV (Redundancy and Various Agricultural Assistance Found of Bologna),
  • FAVLAV (Ferrara Assistance Agricultural Workers Found),
  • CIMLA ( Accident and Illness Found for Agricultural Workers from Forlì-Cesena and Rimini),
  • Safety Peripatetic Committee of Ravenna Province.

 

This book, edited by DINAMICA Soc. Cons. A r.l. and examined by experts from INAIL, wants to be an instrument of easy consultation and comprehension for every agricultural worker. This project aims to spread the knowledge of safety culture, starting from prevention, through the proper use of the protection equipment and the follow of an appropriate behaviour. To reach this goal, the publication has been divided into monographic cards to guarantee an immediate connection between the job the worker is about to do and the prevention of the possible accident causes. “Work Safety” is both the result and the perfect demonstration of collaboration among different provincial bilateral expressions and EBARER. Agricultural workers are going to be provided with useful instruments which facilitate contractual and law application of the rules not only by the employers but also by Health and Safety Officers, Safety and Work Representatives and all other workers. In this way cheapness, validity and sharing of the book is guaranteed whereas duplications avoided.

 

Finally, I want to thank EBARER Managing Committee for the active collaboration which helped to overcome the difficulties implicit in the bilateral expression new approach of the Emila Romagna agricultural social parts.

 

Maurizio Ori
EBARER Chairman

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

This book wants to clarify in a easy and effective way the guidelines that every farm operator has to follow in order to improve general and specific safety conditions. This informative model is based on the law in force about technical norms and good usual procedures (starting from Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 and its supplements), waiting for further instructions from “Conferenza Stato-Regioni”. Besides addressing to salaried workers with both fixed term and open ended contract, this book concerns employers, such as independent farmer, family farm managers, agricultural cooperative etc, who usually perform the same or riskier operations required to their workers every day. Our fervent hope is to provide farms with a significant contribution to the spread of safety culture at work. If these cards will help avoiding or reducing, even partly, injuries caused by dreadful accidents, the effort of the author will be repaid. The book comprehends a collection of INFORMATIVE CARDS, which seek to fully clarify specific ARGUMENTS chosen from a series of general proposed SUBJECTS. These topics result to be of great interest for the Emilia Romagna farms. Firstly, the INFORMATIVE CARD resumes the most considerable dangers in a schematic and standardized way by explicit texts and powerful images. Secondly, it points out the most common errors made by workers, for injuries are usually the result of distraction, physical tiredness, inexperience, excess of self-confidence etc. Finally, the CARD explains the adequate behaviour needed to avoid or minimize major risks. At the end of the book the user will find a pattern, left intentionally blank, that shall be filled in with the information contained in the cards. In this way, the Authors want to stimulate workers to participate for security is built if each and everyone give his/ her contribution.

The pattern is addressed to:

  • workers, including Safety Workers Representative, who want to make helpful suggestions to improve critical situations,
  • employers and Health and Safety Officers who want to place high value on workers’ suggestions and give a stimulus to the improving measures.

Obviously, it is just a “memento” that doesn’t want to replace the “Improving Intervention Program” provided in the norm, but it could be a valid starting point for anyone who has not wrote it yet.

 

 

 

Note: the use of an easy and immediate language wants to overcome the lack of understanding usually due to specific language of technical Handbooks. This decision has been made to simplify the most important subjects which are often underestimated on account of the lacking of comprehensible and easy indications. This does not mean that complex rules and norms full of technical details and shades of meaning shall not be known. More simply, this book’s goal is to underline basic macroscopic exigencies in order to involve workers and propose the possibility to change their course on few but comprehensible aspects. Part of the information, photographs and images come from the CD MULTISICURAGRI: “SICUREZZA NEL LAVORO AGRICOLO – 2008”.