A summer of deadly heat

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/20/2008/3163

A summer of deadly heat
by Dick Meister
July 18, 2008

The summer heat is posing serious dangers for the farmworkers who’ve helped make California the nation’s leading supplier of fruits and vegetables.

The state has rules designed to protect workers from the devastating temperatures in the vineyards and fields that can hover near or above 100 degrees throughout much of the summer. The rules require mainly that workers have easy access to water and regular shade breaks.

But the rules are inadequate and, in any case, are routinely violated by growers and the labor contractors who hire crews for them, says the United Farm Workers union.

UFW President Arturo Rodriguez is certain “the state does not have the capacity to protect farmworkers … They are not being protected from the extreme heat they labor under to pick the food we have on our table.”

Overall statistics on deaths and illness caused by the heat are difficult – if not impossible – to come by. But the UFW and others cite individual cases that make the danger faced by farmworkers alarmingly clear.

Consider the death this year of a 17-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant, Maria Isabel Vasquez, which prompted UFW members and supporters to lead a four-day pilgrimage to the State Capitol in Sacramento to demand tougher and more tightly enforced heat regulations.

FULL story at link.