Worker health and safety is one of the most important and highly developed aspects of European Union policy on employment and social affairs. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) was established in 1996 by the European Union to serve as the main EU reference point for safety and health at work.
Smithfield’s wholly owned international operations have developed employee health and safety policies designed to prevent injuries and illnesses while promoting health and safety in the workplace. These policies are expected to align with EU directives and national regulations.
Our Romanian hog farming group has implemented an integrated management system in accordance with ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and OHSAS:18001 (occupational health and safety management systems) requirements. With the help of EU financial assistance grants, our Romanian processor launched an 18-month awareness campaign in the spring of 2011, focused on occupational illness prevention. To date, we have conducted nearly 570 hours of internal and external trainings for more than 390 employees.
At each of our Poland processing plants, we employ a team of dedicated safety professionals tasked with tracking monthly performance and working to lower the accident rate by conducting training, internal audits, and communicating performance issues with management.
Over the past year, our U.S.-based safety experts have spent time studying the European operations’ safety policies, training standards, and performance records in order to develop a global program for all of our facilities. This new program will address EU requirements and allow our Polish and Romanian operations to collect, gather, and report safety metrics that are more closely aligned with those we use in the United States. We aim to develop a single global system for tracking and managing health and safety performance and will report on our progress in future reports.
We are also working to develop safety metrics for European independent operating companies (IOCs) that are consistent with those in the United States. We hope to present the information in future corporate social responsibility reports.
Training
At all our European operations, each new employee completes a safety training program, focused on basic preventive measures, machine and tool safety, and the correct use of personal protective equipment.
Periodic follow-up classes continue throughout the employee’s career and include training in topics such as emergency plans, ergonomics, chemical safety, personal protective equipment, and hearing conservation. As employees move into more specialized occupations, additional training is conducted to meet safety needs, such as process safety management, Hot Work Procedures for cutting, welding, and grinding, electrical safety, and confined space entry. Safety staff members also host monthly meetings on farms and feed mills to discuss current issues concerning health and safety with hourly employees. In 2010, farming and processing employees in Poland and Romania received a total of nearly 47,800 hours of on-site safety training, or approximately 4.5 hours per individual. Training materials are available at all locations.
Smithfield is working to standardize the safety training guidelines for all managers, supervisors, safety professionals, and hourly employees. We are also working to centralize the training procedures for European IOCs, to better align them with our domestic operations.
Auditing and Inspections
Smithfield’s international operations are subject to regular internal health and safety audits and third-party inspections, including regular audits by relevant regulating bodies. Each location keeps health and safety records. All violations identified by external audits are reported to site managers for immediate correction. After two to three months, a re-inspection verifies that the issues were addressed. Internal auditors conduct facility-wide inspections to ensure adherence to the processes put in place to protect our employees.
For example, at AgriPlus, internal safety professionals conduct quarterly audits on facility safety procedures.
