Agriculture safety seminar overview
Agriculture consistently ranks near the top of lists of the most dangerous industries, including those occupations with the most fatalities. To help change those statistics, SAIF sponsors the Agricultural Safety Seminars each year. The seminars are free, half-day seminars designed for owners, operators, supervisors, and crew leaders. However, anyone interested in the seminar content is welcome to attend.
Small agricultural employers attending the seminar will satisfy one of the four requirements that exempt them from random OSHA inspections. The 2011-2012 seminars will be held in 16 cities across Oregon, and Spanish-language seminars will be offered in Central Point, The Dalles, Hermiston, Hillsboro, Salem, and Tualatin.
Schedule
All seminars will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and include lunch.
Topics for 2011-2012:
ATV and tractor training
ATVs, with their compact size and all-terrain traction, have found an important place in many agricultural operations. This session will provide practical and proven ATV safety tips for you to use in your training programs. We will close the session by showing the new tractor safety video, co-produced by SAIF and the Agri-Business Council of Oregon. This video covers the safety elements that ag employers are required by Oregon OSHA to review annually with their tractor drivers.
The buzz on chain saw and hearing safety
The chain saw is one of our most efficient and productive portable power tools. It can also be one of the most dangerous. This session will draw from chainsaw kickback case studies to illustrate safety training tips that can help avoid injury. The session will conclude with a discussion on how hearing loss occurs and the importance of using hearing protection in noisy environments.
Making sense of safety meetings
In January of 2011, Oregon OSHA rules were changed so that nearly all employers, even very small ag operations, must conduct some combination of crew safety meetings, safety committee meetings, and/or seasonal worker orientation meetings on a regular basis. This session will present a detailed overview of what the current requirements are, sort out which meetings are needed for each employer’s situation, and provide resources to make it much easier to comply with the rules that do apply. The sessions will also review the principles of good safety management for agri-business and explain how to integrate these effective practices into the meetings, so that we can save lives, money, and time while staying out of compliance trouble.