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Migrant Farm Worker Safety |
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 Migrant and seasonal
farm workers in New York suffer from occupational injuries due to falls from ladders and trees and strains due to reaching, lifting and stooping. There is little knowledge among
farm workers and employers about the existence of injury patterns, or even an awareness that preventable occupational injuries are occurring.
The goal of the Migrant Farm Workers Safety Program is to promote agricultural occupational safety in New York State Apple Industry. The migrant and seasonal farm worker force has undergone a demographic shift in recent years from primarily English to a largely Spanish-speaking population. Many New York employers have not adapted their health and safety training to reach this new audience and feel ill equipped to do so. After several years of extensive research, NYCAMH developed and implemented an orchard safety training program with a DOL grant modeled after the New York State Hazard Abatement Board and Cornell University Farm Safety Program. This precedent-setting program is the first of its kind that is strictly volunteer and grower based. With it, NYCAMH has recruited the leading apple growers in the New York State. The major areas of focus are ladder safety, lifting and carrying, strains and sprains, eye safety and poison ivy safety. The strategy of the NYCAMH Orchard Safety Program is to inform growers about the extent of farm worker occupational injuries in their region and to train them in carrying out farm safety environmental assessments. Additionally, NYCAMH works to facilitate better communication between workers and growers to solicit worker input into safety improvements and empower grows to be advocates of farm safety.
NYCAMH actively researches additional safety lesson plans at growers' requests and adds them to the multilingual training materials. If you are interested in this program and would like more information, please call Richard Smith at 800.343.7527 ext. 231 or e-mail him. (This program is funded by the New York State Department of Labor Hazard Abatement Board.) |
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The NYCAMH Orchard Safety Program consists of sessions where growers interact with a NYCAMH facilitator on ways to best approach safety awareness. Many experiences are shared and knowledge is gained. NYCAMH’s safety program is
supplemented through posters with the five lesson plans depicted in both English and Spanish. Further reinforcement occurs with a training video also offered in both English and Spanish. Perhaps the most educational tool used by the Program is the "check stuffer." These check stuffers are small brochures with farm safety information that are distributed by the growers to their workers along with paychecks.