ABSTRACT
This chapter first identifies which work practices and conditions are defined as involving some OHS risk and which are excluded. A significant level of overlap is demonstrated between managers, regulators, experts and workers/farmers in each industry in their “lists” of known hazards, but differences among workers and between workers and managers are also identified which contribute in important ways to health and safety politics. The second half of the chapter shows that workers and self-employed farmers accept a wide range of “known” hazards based on judgements that they present limited or controlled health risks or consequences. Two dimensions of risk judgement are identified – with one axis being the perceived likelihood of injury and disease and the other, the perceived seriousness of the bodily effects arising from the injury or disease. Concerns regarding OHS risks are shown to be contingent on the perception of personal control, knowledge and skill that they directly exercise in their work relative to the control exercised by other workers and managers, and through management systems and technologies.
