Survey on the status of enforcement of European directives on health and safety at work in some Italian farms

Abstract

The present paper shows the results of a survey about the implementation of the Italian legislation on safety and health at work in the agricultural sector. The survey was carried out in Central Italy with a sample consisting of 411 family farms without employees and 119 farms with employees. The sample consists of farms which were contacted by phone and accepted to be involved to the present survey. It is important to emphasize that only 530 out of about 2500 companies showed a positive attitude to fill in the questionnaire (response rate 21.2%). The business leaders were interviewed and asked a series of questions. The questionnaire was developed for the specific purpose of the research and structured in different ways depending on the type of farm management. After collecting data through the above mentioned way, they were processed, leading to the results shown in the paper. We have seen how agriculture companies show an adequate but not optimal compliance to the new Italian legislation on safety and health at workplace after three years it came into force. The research also highlights the issues which have the most significant difficulties in law enforcement in the sample of companies. As for family farms, sanitary surveillance and workers’ information and training represent the main lacks and weakest points. Moreover, they do not provide the proper documentation about health and safety at workplaces when they award the contract to other companies. With regard to the farms with employees, the lack of maintenance program for machinery and equipment and of emergency plans and participation of workers’ health and safety representative are the most common problems. Several difficulties are also found in planning workers’ training programs. Furthermore, the company physician’s task is often limited to medical controls so that he is not involved in risk assessment and training.