Boy picking bell peppers collapses from heat

http://action.ufw.org/page/speakout/peppers?source=web

I want to share a story—a travesty that illustrates why CA farm workers so desperately need a law that would allow them to protect themselves. Please read the story of 16-year old farm worker Nicholas Chavez and send your message to CA Governor Jerry Brown. **Please be sure to add your own subject line and original paragraph to the letter as unique letters have a much bigger impact.

Nicolas, his mother Carmen and father Emiliano, were working night shifts in the bell pepper fields in Bakersfield, CA. Even in the evening, the weather was hot with temperatures reaching 106 degrees. Nicholas told us, "There is not enough water and what they had was warm, the bathrooms were 1/2 mile away. The foreman treated us with a lot of pressure, threatening those who stayed behind, saying that if you do not rush do not come tomorrow."



On July 7th, Nicholas and his family began to work at 6pm. The temperature was 106°F. After an hour Nicholas started to feel sick with severe stomach pain and eventually began to vomit. Around 9pm, his coworker asked if he was OK, and, on hearing the symptoms, told him to go drink water and rest for a while. He let the assistant foreman know why he was taking a break. The labor contractor and foreman came over to him and asked why he wasn't working. He explained and they told him ,'do not come tomorrow; wait until your parents are out of work.' Around 12:30am the foreman came back and asked Nicholas if he was ready to go back to work, and upon hearing that Nicholas still felt ill he left him by the side of the car waiting for his parents who finally got off of work at 4:30am.

Nicholas tells us, "They never offered to take me to the hospital or give me fresh water, they just laughed at me. I was very afraid of falling asleep and not waking up. I didn't want to worry my mother, because if she stops working, she would lose her job."

Nicholas' mother, Carmen, worried about the same thing. She told us that, "On my way to the bathroom I saw my son on the side of the car vomiting. I started crying, feeling powerless." Carmen was afraid if she stopped to go help her son, she would be fired and then she would be unable to provide for her family. What a choice for a mother to make!


FULL story at link.

You know the world is fucked up when profits come before human life. And they do so every day!

Ptooey,,,

cases of abuse and ensure this does not happen again. My heart goes out to the young man and his family.

But . . . it is important to note that this is ONE CASE. I've lived in the San Joaquin Valley off and on since 1958. I'm old enough to have seen horrendous abuses to farm workers, of all ethnic groups I've seen people horribly exploited and made to work in unbearable working conditions. I know this because my family was one of those working in the fields in the 30's, 40's and 50's and in the packing houses in the 50's-the 90's so I have first-hand accounts.

In the 60's, the UFW became a strong advocate for reform for all farm workers and continues to do so today. Through the years, many groups, including the ACLU and others, have intervened and, working together, by the 1990's, things had improved dramatically. The farmers I KNOW do NOT have bathrooms 1/2 mile away, they provide easily-accessible ice water, provide breaks, and start working while it's still dark in the morning so they don't have to work past 12:00 or 1:00. Is the abuse described in the article unheard of here? Certainly not, but our Valley gets a bad enough rap and I don't want people thinking that this case is typical. It's not.

http://www.ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=cre_leg_back&b_no=9098

I've posted about the ONE case that got all the press several times. Maria.

May 14, 2008 Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, 17, collapses after laboring more than nine hours without accessible shade or water. She dies two days later. Management never calls 911 and tells Maria Isabel’s fiancé to lie about the events.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=367x20051

UFW turns up the heat (last year 12 died during the "BLACK SUMMER)

http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubS...

Union uses deaths to gain support for ‘card-check’ bill

Wes Sander
Capital Press

Reports of heat-related deaths among California's farmworkers in recent years - anywhere from a small handful to a dozen - have resulted mostly from new heat-stress rules, which include reporting requirements.

The state's enforcement agency holds that fact, among others, as evidence that its new rules are working. But United Farm Workers, which claims to represent some 27,000 farmworkers throughout the year, cites those deaths as reason for making it easier to unionize workers.


Workers in this Jackson and Perkins rose operation have umbrellas to shade them while they tie rose plants to stakes. - Cecilia Parsons, Capital Press


Union head Arturo Rodriguez, arguing for a bill that would allow greater leeway in how the union obtains workers' votes, claims the state is unable to enforce its own rules.

"There has been a regulation in existence now for several years, and the reality has been (that) the state of California is not in a position to enforce that regulation," Rodriguez said at a press conference in support of SB789, a bill approved by the Senate on April 23 that would allow the "card-check" form of union voting, in addition to the secret-ballot process currently required.

But Len Welsh, chief of California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal-OSHA), the enforcement arm of the Department of Industrial Relations, argues that the state has only just gotten started. And the efforts of his department, Welsh says, are already showing effects.

"We're getting reports because people are aware of (heat dangers) now, because we've made them aware," Welsh said. "In 2005 we started seeing a degree of reporting that we hadn't seen."

FULL story at link.

...for Jan Brewer and her disgusting fellow-travelers. :grr:

Nicholas was unable to do anything about his working conditions, because he would have been fired even if he were the best picker they ever had.

It's completely legal to fire powerless people for "no reason whatsoever" but for what actually turns out to be the Oppressor protecting its profits. People such as Mike Pompeo run interference for employers who fire people like Nicholas for no good reason.

That's what I was trying to tell you earlier when you ran away and changed your Tea Party thread's Subject line resulting in a Locked thread.





On edit: to correct the deceased worker's name.

Employers and managers who treat people like they are expendable should be put under a microscope and they should receive the stiffest penalties that would apply to their infractions. If I had the power I would shut down this operation until they comply with the most minute of state and federal regulations. I would also have these particular fields tested for excessive use of pesticides and insecticides.