title: Occupational health and safety regulations in the dairy industry.
abstract: The application of occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation in the dairy industry varies throughout the world. Generally there is no specific OHS legislation that applies to the dairy industry and mostly in countries the current OHS legislation applies to all workplaces with specific guidelines that apply to agricultural industries. The main difference between countries is in the application of OHS legislation specifically in relation to the size of the farms. In the USA, the OHS legislation, and therefore enforcement, does not, in most cases, apply to farms with less than 11 employees, whereas in other countries there is no minimum number of employees and in some cases such as the United Kingdom and Australia it covers all people who work on the farm. The other area of difference is in the use and publication of guidelines for the industry; some countries have a wide range of guidelines whereas other counties have few. Generally, this relates to the jurisdiction of the OHS legislation, which in several countries is not at a national level such as USA, Canada, and Australia. The main principal of OHS legislation is that all workplaces, including dairy farms, should be a safe and healthy place to work, and does not vary significantly between the countries reviewed even those with prescriptive legislation.
authors.affiliation: School of Exercise and Health Science, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia. s.reed@ecu.edu.au
authors.forename: Sue
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Reed
authors.forename: David I
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Douphrate
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lundqvist
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jarvie
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McLean
authors.forename: Niels
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Koehncke
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Colosio
authors.forename: Tanusha
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Singh
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D001208:Asia; D001315:Australia; D002170:Canada; D003612:Dairying / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D009520:New Zealand; D009784:Occupational Diseases; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012449:Safety / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D013020:South America; D014481:United States; D017132:Workplace / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence