Workplace safety still an issue in agriculture

Agriculture is considered to be one of the most unsafe sectors of Poland’s economy. Despite improvements in recent years, the level of occupational accidents on farms is considerably higher than in other sectors of the economy. Moreover, a large number of minors continue to work in this hazardous working environment.

Agriculture remains one of the least safe working environments in Poland. Bearing in mind that the sector employs some 18% of the national workforce, its poor safety record is of particular concern to the authorities, including the National Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy, PIP). The latter is the public body responsible for monitoring working conditions and protecting employee rights, including adherence to occupational health and safety legislation in agriculture.

In 2006, PIP presented to the Council for Labour Protection (Rada Ochrony Pracy, ROP) a report on working conditions in agriculture, focusing specifically on the issue of child safety, since minors participate widely in labour processes throughout rural areas. This report also outlines the results of the inspectorate’s activities in control, prevention and education within the agricultural sector for 2005.

Working conditions in agriculture

In 2005, PIP inspectors visited a total of 161 farms, mainly privately owned, employing a total of 3,283 workers of whom 742 were women. As the report shows, working conditions have not improved and numerous safety regulation breaches were discovered during the inspections, in some cases resulting in financial penalties. In comparison with previous years, the safety level on farms actually deteriorated in certain areas including use of chemicals, field work or harvesting work activities. As regards the skills of workers in agriculture, PIP did not observe any significant changes over the past years and skills’ levels remain largely inadequate.

Unsatisfactory level of workplace safety

Due to technological underdevelopment in agriculture, many labour processes still depend heavily on manual labour. This factor is given as the main reason for such a low level of workplace safety. Nevertheless, in recent years a steady improvement of workplace safety has been observed in agriculture, according to statistics collected by the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (Kasa Rolniczego Ubezpieczenia Społecznego, KRUS).

Despite this positive trend, the occupational accident ratio in agriculture – that is, the number of workplace accidents per 1,000 workers reported to the national authorities – was 13.3 reported cases in 2005, compared with 17.7 cases in 2004. At this ratio, the number of occupational accidents is almost twice as high as the average figure for all other sectors (7.99 reported accidents) in 2005, and even exceeds the number of cases reported in construction (11.26 occupational accidents), which traditionally represents a hazardous sector from a workplace safety perspective. Mining and quarrying appears to be the only sector with working conditions even worse than those in agriculture, with an accident ratio of 15.82 cases reported in 2005.

One positive outlook, however, is the continuing decline in the total number of accidents resulting in compensation payments, from almost 40,000 workplace accidents in 1995 to 30,000 in 2001 and less than 21,000 in 2005. Another positive aspect in terms of occupational accidents is the low level of serious work-related casualties: the number of fatalities and of injuries resulting in disability has continued to fall. The number of fatalities has decreased from 316 cases reported in 1995 to 220 fatalities in 2001 and 128 in 2005.

Child labour in farming

Labour demand is cyclical in agriculture, with a major increase over the spring to autumn period, the so-called ‘high season’. During this period, the involvement of minors under 18 years of age in farming rises sharply, in particular on private farms, which constitute over 99% of all agricultural operations in Poland. The results of PIP’s inspections cast some light on the extent of children’s involvement in farming activities: PIP inspectors have found a notable decrease of children on site in recent years. In 2001, children accounted for 20% of the workforce in agriculture, but by 2005 this had fallen to 13%.

However, a significant proportion of these children were reported to be performing work that is normally not allowed for minors, such as operating heavy agricultural equipment. In 2001, more than half (54%) of children working on farms operated such equipment, while in 2005 this number had decreased to one in three children. In terms of work-related accidents, children often suffered injuries and the level of casualties remained considerable over the past decade. In 1996, a total of 1,071 occupational accidents involving children were reported, increasing to 1,397 cases reported in 2001 and the same number again in 2003.

Commentary

From a worker’s perspective, agriculture remains a high risk sector despite improvements in the level of workplace safety in recent years. Moreover, the scale of children’s involvement in farming remains high. Due to insufficient labour supply in rural areas, no immediate solution seems to be available to effectively curb child employment in the sector, particularly during the season of working in the fields. In the long term, however, ongoing technical modernisation of the sector will hopefully reduce the role of manual labour in production processes. This may eventually lead to further improvements in the level of workplace safety in agriculture.

References and further information

Kasa Rolniczego Ubezpieczenia Społecznego (KRUS), Wypadki przy pracy i choroby zawodowe rolników oraz działania prewencyjne KRUS w 2005 roku (1.76Mb PDF) [Accidents at work, occupational illnesses, and preventive actions of KRUS in 2005], Warsaw, 2006.

Rada Ochrony Pracy (ROP), Warunki pracy w rolnictwie z uwzględnieniem bezpieczeństwa dzieci w gospodarstwach rolnych (259Kb PDF) [Working conditions in agriculture with a special focus on children’s safety], Warsaw, 2006.

For an overview of working conditions in Poland in general, see the EWCO report on Continuing risks in working conditions.

Jan Czarzasty, Institute of Public Affairs (ISP)