Agricultural growers push California farm workers to death

This has been a deadly summer for farm workers in California. Four farm workers have died of heat stroke while working in the fields in a two-month period. Another clings to life after collapsing in the heat wave while loading table grapes.

Bosses often make farm workers endure intense heat without sufficient shade or drinking water.

Although the state has rules that are supposedly designed to protect workers from extreme temperatures in the vineyards and fields, the rules are inadequate and regularly ignored by growers and the labor contractors who hire crews for them.

Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, 17, died May 16 after suffering a heat stroke while working in the fields outside Stockton. Jimenez was two months pregnant and engaged to be married. She had been working for four hours in over 95-degree heat with no water break. Following her death, the UFW and its supporters organized a four-day march to Sacramento to demand stricter regulations over work conditions in the fields.

Jose Macarena Hernandez, 64, died during a heat wave in June while harvesting butternut squash in Santa Maria. In July, 48-year-old Ramiro Carillo, father of two teenagers, died after working all day for Sun Valley Packing in Selma. Carillo had complained that he felt sick from the heat. Later the same week, Abdon Felix Garcia, father of three, died after spending the morning and early afternoon working for Sunview Vineyards in Arvin. All of them had core body temperatures far above what the human body can tolerate.

Other workers have come forward to expose similar inhumane working conditions in the fields. In the summer, temperatures frequently rise well above 100 degrees in the fields.

These deaths and injuries were preventable, but growers and their foremen ignore basic safety precautions. The employers often do not provide clean, accessible drinking water. Workers are not allowed to take breaks before or after their regular breaks even if they are fatigued by the heat. They work under the sun with little or no shade.

“In the fields the temperature is 108-110 degrees,” said vineyard worker Martin Zavalka. “The company provides umbrellas for shade… very little umbrellas. Sometimes the umbrellas are broken and the company takes three or four days to replace them.” (The Free Press, July 18)

According to Kate McGuire, a spokesperson for California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency has conducted 659 inspections at agricultural work sites this year and issued 348 citations for non-compliance with regulations.

Cal-OSHA claims to put special emphasis on violations related to heat-stress prevention; if that is the case, why are farm workers dying at such alarming rates?

Though Cal-OSHA may cite growers for breaking whatever paltry rules exist, the slim chance of getting a slap on the wrist hardly outweighs the potential profits from overexploiting workers under dangerous conditions as far as growers are concerned.

Following Jimenez’s death, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, said: “[Workers] are not being protected from the extreme heat they labor under to pick the food we have on our table. The farm worker is not an agricultural implement.” (Mercury News, June 3)