Safety in the vineyard: it's a jungle out there

Wines & Vines, August, 2005 by Jane Firstenfeld

Leadership and commitment are the key factors in maintaining worker safety in the vineyard. "I don't think (vineyard) management or ownership invest enough in their supervisors," says John Barrientos, a vineyard labor consultant who has worked with agricultural employers since 1974.

"A person at PG&E (the California power supplier) goes through school to be a supervisor," Barrientos observes, adding that in agriculture, employees tend to be elevated to supervisory positions through seniority. Agricultural enterprises, he says, "don't invest enough in training their supervisors in motivation, discipline and empathy," though some, of course, do a better job than others.

Barrientos is manager of field staff operations and labor management consultant, specializing in vineyards, for Farm Employers Labor Service (FELS), a subscriber-member subsidiary of California Farm Bureau. FELS assists its members in labor law compliance and avoiding labor relations problems; its goal is "to assist subscribers in avoiding costly labor management mistakes," according to its Web site, fels.org.

FELS supplies the invaluable Summary of Employment Requirements for California Winegrape Growers, published by California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG) each year, and available free to CAWG members ($35 for nonmembers at cawg.org.) The 80-page spiral-bound summary is a how-to for vineyard labor relations, and is extensively revised each year to keep up with legal regulations on contract labor, wages, discrimination, working conditions and Cal/OSHA requirements.

But having a guidebook doesn't mean employers will read it, commit it to memory or commit the time and resources necessary to follow its intricate requirements. And following the requirements will not necessarily minimize your risk of employee injuries, or your risk of being sued for those injuries, Barrientos says.

This is where training comes in. "There is not anything we can do about those workers' comp rates," Barrientos acknowledges, adding that a lack of workers' comp claims probably won't cause your rates to go down, merely hold them at current levels. "We strive to have our clients have no exposure for any violations," he says. "Manage your risks, manage your liabilities. If you don't bother to train (your workers and supervisors) you have bigtime liability.

"Do the right thing, but look at reducing your risk," he recommends. When the inevitable worker mishap occurs, and the employer is under investigation, he needs to be able to say confidently, and truthfully, "We have everything in place. We're not just paying lip service. We have meetings, we have sign-in sheets," Barrientos says. In other words, plan ahead, both to avoid injuries and to prove you have taken the necessary steps to avoid them.

What's most lacking, in Barrientos' decades of experience, is a code of safe work practices, "Simple dos and don'ts," he says. "Employers tend to do general safety training without being specific. They end up having one big, general safety meeting, when they'd be better off doing smaller safety meetings." Monthly meetings to address seasonal safety concerns such as pruning, suckering, vine tying or lifting at harvest will communicate more immediately and memorably the issues at hand.

Growers who subscribe to FELS receive a monthly service call to validate compliance with mandatory regulations. The FELS rep will also address problem areas. "If they're experiencing a lot of cut fingers, we focus in on those topics," Barrientos explains.

What are the safety issues for which vineyard owners (and operators) are most at risk? Are pesticides, much publicized and reviled by media and labor unions, the biggest problem? Not according to Barrientos, who points out that only one or two people apply them in a given vineyard, and they are invariably supplied with masks and other safety equipment.

Lifting is a well-known problem, and injuries caused by lifting, twists and sprains. "During harvest, it's tractors and gondolas, all moving pretty quickly," Barrientos says. (See page 54 for ways to avoid lifting injuries.)

Pruning is also a dangerous activity. Injuries can happen when workers carry long-handled shears on their shoulders, toss knives to each other or stow hand-held shears in their waistbands. Like running with scissors, taking this kind of shortcut can produce dire consequences, and yet, "We see that all the time," Barrientos says. "It goes back to leadership out there. Employees are going to do what you tell them. It's the leadership" that must set and enforce the standards at every worksite.

Perhaps surprisingly, Barrientos singles out eye safety protection as the most intractable, ongoing, year-round safety issue in the vineyard. The solution is obvious: Put on your safety goggles and go to work, but, he says, workers seem to resist this simple and inexpensive solution. Again, he says, leadership must step in and insist.

Barrientos acknowledges that in many situations, a single supervisor, perhaps with one or more assistants, may over-see as many as 40 to 45 vineyard workers, although, he says, "everyone does it differently."