Information for farm volunteers

Friday 1 March 2004

People who have volunteered to help out on farms with the one-off recovery work from the recent floods are not classed as "employees". Farmers don't have any legal responsibility for them under the Health and Safety in Employment Act.

Despite this we would like to remind everyone doing this work to take care to ensure that no one is hurt or killed at this time.

There are several things that OSH would particularly like to remind everyone with volunteers or Task Force Green workers on their property:

• Make sure that people know how to safely operate any machinery they are using (chainsaws, ATVs, tractors, etc). Many of these people will not have used these machines before.
• Be careful to use machinery only for its intended purpose.
• Watch out for trees blown down - these can be extremely dangerous to remove and often require skilled tree-fellers.

Finally, please don't hesitate to call us on 06-359-1919 if you require advice or assistance - the last thing anyone wants is to have to deal with an emergency of someone being hurt on top of everything else they already have on their plate.