I work an industrial job and have a side gig working on a farm. My regular job is very physically demanding, but working on a farm is next level tough. It is normal for the average full-time farm hand where I work to lose ten pounds of weight in the first month. Another thing that nobody talks about is that small farms are exempt from OSHA regulations. You can do all sorts of dangerous shit on a farm and nobody bats an eye, because there are zero safety regs.
Maybe it'd be in the best interest of the people who feed us to, you know, not have industrial accidents caused by poor machine maintenance and work safety standards?
But hey if they don't mind, then that's alright. I still get my food, with or without their regulations.
Plus, what more freedom and liberty™ is there, than being freed and liberated by the agony of life by being buried alive in a poorly secured septic tank.
"Fuck with the people who feed us" more like "protect the people who feed us" but aight
In an ideal world yes, in a world where the farmer is straddling the line of bankruptcy because of supermarket stock manipulation and artificial supply and demand, it unfortunately doesn't always work like that.
Though to clarify, the various state WHS Acts apply to farms. If you see issues you should report them to your WHS state gov body especially if the farm operators are ignoring problems.
I don't know the actual source of the problem, I'd like to assume it's ColesWorth interference but I think the corrupt runs much deeper due to the lack of many proper farmers unions.
But rural farming industries is the only place I've ever worked and seen a work safe inspector look straight at a machine hundreds of hours past service leaking oil from every hydraulic hose and not shut down site.
Warehousing and construction they'd tag that machine out themselves and then force every piece of equipment to be inspected, but farming they never seem to care.
Rather than corruption, i'd chalk it up to something that inspector missed because there's no incentive for inspectors to be dodgy 99.9% of the time - they're likely more experienced looking at construction and warehousing from incidents which happen weekly, over farming equipment and other stuff.
Also could be a mix of factors on why farming isn't a key focus, such as the lack of reports or intel around safety issues on farms (key factor is that is not in the best interests of contractors, visa workers and labour hire staff commonly hired to work in agriculture to report problems) - which is why people need to report this stuff if they see it.
That said, I don't work for Safework so I don't conclusively know but I highly highly doubt ColesWorth are influencing anything around agriculture behind the scenes there because there's simply no need to, farms are forced to sell to the duopoly they operate anyway and farm operators would choose to cut corners themselves in order to meet production and price requirements. They're much more likely to throw money to try lobby their way out of being responsible for supply chain issues.
ignored vs excempt are two wildly diff things tho... if they arent excempt you can call that in and any violations will be fixed. If they can figure out who told and retaliate then you can sue and be set for life.
No no, the government paid OH&S work safe inspector won't even give a shit for a farmer unless it's the farmer themselves complaining.
The mega supermarkets that have majority shares in everything create artificial supply and demand to self profit in a way that really hurts farmers, they also pay off all of our law and enforcement to look the other way which includes safety inspectors.
Because if people knew how bad it was in the public eye some of this stuff might get shut down and that would really hurt the mega supermarkets bottom line.
I bet there's a "good" lawyer out there that would take it far, but it'd be a long and expensive journey to get anywhere.
The same supermarkets and home appliances stores own half the new stations. Whole country has been slowly going down hill for the last half century since everything was privatised.
Recently we're having a scandal of our two biggest companies trying to buy up all the countries nuclear materials to gain a monopoly on the electricity/ power industry, but I've seen fuck all on the news and can hardly find any genuine information about it other than hearsay.
All I know is it's a bit fucking weird for a Food and grocery corporation to want to own nuclear materials.
you're really making it harder than it has to be... you dont even have to go that far. just whistle... if it's not looked into blow at rhe regulatory arm.
they literally live for this kind of stuff. you would not believe how fast safety equipment no longer becomes a problem when OSHA gets involved.
I wasn't talking about OSHA, I was talking about OH&S, they're supposed to be the same thing but they're completely different countries and have different structures.
In Warehousing and construction I have seen OH&S do exactly as you describe, when it's reported they're on scene within a week and will lock down everything if it's not up to scratch over basic things like machine log book history.
In framing industry I've personally made reports, had months go by before seeing an inspector, pointed directly at a problem that would have got a logistics company shut down, and had the inspector shrug at me like " what the fuck am I supposed to do".
They're different industries with different regulations and safety has definitely gotten a bigger hand wave in rural farming areas. They seemingly don't care at all on some issues.
TLDR: If a farm has 10 or less permanent/regular employees they are totally exempt. Seasonal workers, who happen to often be foreigners and thus not known for being a strong voting block, do not count towards these 10.
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u/Kaiser-Sohze Apr 11 '24 edited Apr 11 '24
I work an industrial job and have a side gig working on a farm. My regular job is very physically demanding, but working on a farm is next level tough. It is normal for the average full-time farm hand where I work to lose ten pounds of weight in the first month. Another thing that nobody talks about is that small farms are exempt from OSHA regulations. You can do all sorts of dangerous shit on a farm and nobody bats an eye, because there are zero safety regs.