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...California implemented the nation's first heat-illness standard, requiring farms and contractors to provide water and shade to the state's 650,000 farm workers who help supply 44% of the nation's fruits and vegetables. The lawsuit claims the enforcement agency, the State's Division of Occupational Health and Safety (Cal-OSHA) is woefully understaffed (only 198 inspectors for 17 million state workers including the 650,000 farm workers) and that since California enacted its Heat Illness Prevention regulation, "the number of farm-worker heat-related deaths has increased." Catherine Lhamon, assistant legal director for the ACLU...
...inspectors violate the rules as compared to 67% three years ago. Yet the UFW and its attorneys contend that last year the agency conducted only 750 inspections among the approximately 35,000 farms statewide - and found "that nearly 40% had violated mandatory heat-safety regulations." According to the lawsuit, six farm workers died from heat-related illness in 2008. State officials count three. There have been no deaths in 2009, but the union says there have been numerous hospitalizations...
Lawyers for the farm workers say that the big growers, who own the land and who most profit by the workers' labors, have little incentive to ensure adequate water and shade because farm-labor contractors employ the farm workers. In addition, says the lawsuit, employers see little reason to comply with the regulation because "those few violators who are occasionally identified generally escape with little or no punishment." Attorney Bradley Phillips of Munger, Tolles & Olson says the way to improve worker safety is to "create the maximum economic incentive" for the large growers. Under the current system, labor contractors...
...neglect not ignorance as the cause of farm worker deaths," said UFW President Arturo Rodriguez. He said the union had been in negotiations with state officials to improve the current regulation but with temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley now averaging 100 degrees they cannot afford to wait. "This lawsuit ensures that the governor knows we mean business," Rodriguez said...
Reacting to the lawsuit, Cal-OSHA filed a proposal with the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to amend the regulation to require that shade be present at all times. Agency official John C. Duncan said the proposed revision "will make it clear that employees have the right to take a rest in the shade whenever they feel the need to do so to prevent overheating." In the past two months, however, the board has twice failed to adopt emergency proposals to strengthen the heat regulation. After the second rejection, Schwarzenegger issued a statement saying that the board "has failed...