I came across an old article talking about and giving tips for worker’s safety for those workers working in vineyards. I was impressed with the way this article tackled the scope of all of the ways that workers could potentially get injured while on the job.
Hand pruning is the most expensive part of wine production, according to the article, and workers have a lot of pressure to produce. This can cause fatigue in the muscles in various parts of the body. Particularly, this occurs frequently in the back, but workers are accustomed to just work through the fatigue, placing their backs at risk.
The article suggest that workers take microbreaks every 30 minutes to pause and stretch. This helps the muscles to recover from the repetitive strain, it helps the muscles move through their entire contractile length, and it helps to bathe the muscle tissue with nutrients while expelling wastes. This is similar to a recent OSHA manual that I have that suggests the same thing for office workers. OSHA suggests that office workers take microbreaks to avoid fatigue and repetitive strain injuries.
Since these workers are a big part of a wine production’s investment, they ought to be cared for properly. Chiropractic care can help the workers maintain their physical form for efficient work.
Chiropractic care identifies imbalances in the skeleton and joints, and the muscles pulling on and controlling the skeleton. Chiropractic care helps to relax tight muscles, which also helps with the speedy recovery of a week’s worth of work. Just like athletes benefit greatly from chiropractic care, so too can “industrial athletes” perform better when cared for.
These guys usually don’t take the initiative to seek out chiropractic care for themselves, so it would make good economic and steward sense for employers to send them to a chiropractor. Supportive chiropractic care for vineyard workers can help reduce worker’s compensation claims by preventing injuries. It can be surprisingly affordable too. For cash services rendered in a typical chiropractic office, it can be $40 to $50 a visit.
Employers can negotiate their own terms with chiropractors to make the fee less as long as it means a steady stream of patients coming through the chiropractor’s door. If a crew of workers for a vineyard is 40 men, and the men get supportive care once per week, this comes to $6,400 a month that the employer would pay. I don’t know what vineyard managers typically pay out in worker’s compensation claims, but I’m told it is pretty expensive. I would be interested in seeing those numbers to see if preventing several new claims per year would balance out that expense.
Of course, this would also potentially cut down on manforce lost to injury, and it would lead to greater satisfaction among workers. Most people enjoy chiropractic care, and this extra benefit could really raise employee’s satisfaction.
Most people in Sonoma love to see the economy run along smoothly, and the wine industry here is a great part of that. We all want workers to be as healthy as possible for the overall well-being of the community. Chiropractic care can be a valuable partner in that quest for better health, improved efficiency, and job satisfaction.
Todd Lloyd, DC
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Tags: costs, injury, pain, repetitive, strain, vineyard, worker
