I want to tell you a story of agribusinesses greed, indifference, and death.  It’s the story of a young girl whose life was lost before she even had a chance to start living it.  On May 16, 2008, a 17 year old farmworker, Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, died in the California fields from the heat and lack of water. At least five other California farm workers died last summer from the heat. Fifteen farm workers have died of heat-related complications since July 2004.

Yesterday, the United Farm Workers and many others marked the one year anniversary of when 17-year old Maria Isabel collapsed of heat stroke. Maria’s uncle Doroteo Jimenez spoke:

How we can help prevent more deaths, after the fold.  

First, let’s go back in time to a year ago:

Maria collapsed while working for Merced Farm Labor in a vineyard owned by West Coast Grape Farming outside of Stockton, CA. Maria worked for nine hours in temperatures that reached 101 degrees. There was no water nearby. There was no shade.

After about 2 hours of delays, Maria was finally taken to a clinic. Her temperature upon arrival was 108.4 degrees. Maria’s heart stopped six times in the next two days before she passed away. Doctors said if emergency medical help had been summoned or she had been taken to the hospital sooner, she might have survived.

UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez said at the funeral of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez:

How much is the life of a farm worker worth? Is it less than the life of any other human being?

Doroteo Jimenez, uncle of 17 yr-old Maria Isabel, spoke at a Los Angeles area vigil commemorating Maria’s life yesterday:

Maria was a beautiful human being who came to this country with a lot of dreams and the desire to work hard and help her mom and younger siblings, but her dreams were cut short. A year after her passing, the best way to honor her is by making sure farm workers are protected and treated with dignity and respect.”

The United Farmworkers Union explains why we need to act:

Governor Schwarzenegger came to her funeral and said words that gave workers hope: “Maria’s death should have been prevented, and all Californians must do everything in their power to ensure no other worker suffers the same fate. We have put in place employer regulations to prevent heat illness, and I cannot say strongly enough that they must be followed…There is no excuse for failing to protect worker safety.”

Unfortunately, these were words, like the words said in movies. The state has finally filed charges in Maria’s case. This is good. However, violations occur every day and little is done. Complaints regarding lack of drinking water, shade and work breaks to make use of these simple but lifesaving measures are an everyday occurrence for farm workers (see worker stories). Last year five other farm workers died of heat-related causes after Maria’s death.

This is why SB789, CA Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers (Steinberg) must be passsed and signed by the Governor.  The bill will make it easier for farm workers to organize and help enforce the laws that California’s government cannot enforce.  Where the union is strong, water is available and the legally mandated heat breaks happen.  It literally is a matter of life and death.  

SB789 passed the California state senate and will next be heard in the state assembly and then go to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Let’s stop the deaths in the fields and help those who earn their bread by the literal sweat of their brow not just live a more decent life, but LIVE.  

Please take action today and tell the California Assembly to pass SB789, a bill that will give farm workers the power to protect themselves.

Please sign the letter:

Take action on the anniversary of Maria Isabel’s heat death

Today I join with the UFW and thousands of others to mourn the passing of 17-year old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez who died one year ago. Maria collapsed on May 14 while working for Merced Farm Labor in a vineyard owned by West Coast Grape Farming outside of Stockton, CA. Maria worked for nine hours in temperatures that reached 101 degrees. There was no water nearby. There was no shade.

After about 2 hours of delays, Maria was finally taken to a clinic. Her temperature upon arrival was 108.4 degrees. Maria’s heart stopped six times in the next two days before she passed away. Doctors said if emergency medical help had been summoned or she had been taken to the hospital sooner, she might have survived.

Maria’s unnecessary death is not alone.  Five other farm workers died of heat related illnesses last summer. Fifteen farm workers have died of heat-related complications since July 2004. The UFW will be conducting vigils on the anniversary of each of their death to keep the memory of these hard working men and women alive and to tell you that enough is enough–farm workers need a tool where they can protect themselves.

The state has finally filed charges in Maria’s case.  However, violations occur every day and nothing is done. Complaints regarding lack of drinking water, shade and work breaks to make use of these simple but lifesaving measures are an everyday occurrence for farm workers. Last year five other farm workers died of heat-related causes after Maria’s death.

Please support SB789, CA Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers (Steinberg), which has passed the senate and will next be heard in the assembly. This important bill will make it easier for farm workers to organize and enforce the laws that California’s government is not enforcing.

We need your help to do more to prevent unnecessary deaths from occurring this year. Having laws on the books that often are not enforced is not enough. Please pass SB789, a bill that will give farm workers the power to protect themselves.

Si, Se Puede!

Please, please, sign the letter, even if you do not live in California.  The Assembly should know the whole world is watching. So should the Governor.

Take action on the anniversary of Maria Isabel’s heat death

You can learn more details about this continuing tragedy in these diaries I wrote last year:

Sixth Farm Worker Dies from the Heat this Summer in California.  A Call for Action.

Another Farm Worker dies. Does anyone give a damn?  The Netroots Do.

United Farm Workers Calls for Manslaughter Charges Against Company in Death of 17 Year Old  

How many Farmworkers must die before someone cares??

Please Tell Fallen Farm Worker’s Family We Care

“How much is the life of a farm worker worth? Is it less than the life of any other human being?”

Please sign the letter.

Take action on the anniversary of Maria Isabel’s heat death

Now more than ever a comprehensive U.S. immigration reform is key in helping rebuild our country and giving back American working families the prosperity and equality they deserve. When we allow a group of people to be exploited and discriminated against, it negatively impacts American workers by driving down wages, benefits and working conditions.

President Obama recently announced he will pursue immigration reform that would allow the millions of undocumented workers already living in the country now to “come out of the shadows.” For that to happen, they need to be able to speak up and report abuses, organize and come to the bargaining table without fearing deportation. The reality is that most of these millions of workers have already established families in their communities and are part of our society as much as any U.S.-born American.

According to the federal government, more than 50 percent of U.S. farm workers laboring are undocumented. If we were to deport all undocumented farm workers, it would mean the collapse of the agricultural industry as we know it. That’s why the UFW has worked together with the agricultural industry for the last 10 years to craft a bipartisan approach that would ensure a legal work force for U.S. agriculture.

This compromise resulted in the AgJobs bill that would give undocumented farm workers presently here the right to earn legal status by continuing to work in agriculture. AgJobs is the practical and equitable solution in addressing grower concerns about labor shortages and the insecurity that makes farm workers so vulnerable to abuse.

Undocumented farm workers possess essential skills needed to maintain the viability of the agricultural industry. By allowing them to work here without molestation, we can ensure growers have a legal and available work force, and prevent unscrupulous employers from abusing the workers.

Blog by UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez, cross-posted from The Hill

(Several people died in the fields last year, such a scenario should not be repeated. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Cal-OSHA has announced today that they are kicking off a campaign to train employers to protect farm workers from the heat. Ironically, the same agency just proposed changes that actually undermine the current regulations aimed to protect workers from dying or becoming ill from extreme heat.

Teaching growers how to avoid illness and deaths among their workforce is important, but it’s not enough. At the same time, the governor must make sure the laws are enforced. Such a system surely includes giving farm workers the tools to protect themselves.  

For the past four years, the United Farm Workers has worked tirelessly to prevent heat deaths. In response to pressure from the UFW and their supporters, Gov. Schwarzenegger issued heat regulations. Despite these regulations, six farm workers died in the summer of 2008-as the rules went unenforced and ignored by employers.

The evidence points to neglect–not ignorance–as the cause of farm worker deaths. Also, the state’s consistent reduction of fines for violations has made these regulations ineffective.

Please take action today and help us tell the governor that more of the same will not prevent deaths.  Farm workers need a system that works. This requires a multi-faceted approach which would include: enforcing existing laws, giving farm workers the tools to protect themselves, and seeking serious criminal penalties for those whose gross negligence has caused the death of innocent people.

Go to:

http://www.ufwaction.org/campaign/heat309

I have been writing about the heat deaths of the farm workers in California since May.  (After the fold are links for diaries for background.)  

Six have died since May.  The latest one was Maria de Jesus Alvarez, 63, mother of nine, who died early this month.  The first one to die was 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, who died in May.  Marie was about one month pregnant when she died, and likely did not ever know she was pregnant.  The state fined the labor contractor $262,700 for failing to follow heat illness prevention regulations at the time Jimenez was stricken, but that won’t bring her back.  And the deaths have continued at an accelarated pace since then.

You can help to end this tragedy!

This Monday, August 18, more than 800 farm workers from throughout California want to go to Sacramento.

They want the chance to tell the governor and their elected officials to support AB 2386, “Secret Ballot Elections for Farmworkers,” which has moved out of the assembly and which will be voted on that afternoon in the state senate.

After the fold, I’ll tell you how you can help the farmworkers help themselves.

(also on docudharma and a version will be on Daily Kos tomorrow)

I have been writing for months on the deaths of farm workers in California from the heat. Six farm workers deaths are being or have been investigated because of heat-related causes since May.

This brings to 15 the number of farm workers whose death have been investigated as heat-related since Governor Schwarzenegger took office.

You can learn more details of this continuing tragedy in these diaries:

Sixth Farm Worker Dies from the Heat this Summer in California.  A Call for Action.

Another Farm Worker dies. Does anyone give a damn?  The Netroots Do.

United Farm Workers Calls for Manslaughter Charges Against Company in Death of 17 Year Old  

How many Farmworkers must die before someone cares??

Please Tell Fallen Farm Worker’s Family We Care

“How much is the life of a farm worker worth? Is it less than the life of any other human being?”

As UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez said at the funeral of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez:

How much is the life of a farm worker worth? Is it less than the life of any other human being?

The state has fined the labor contractor for whom Maria Isabel worked:

Atwater-based Merced Farm Labor, the contractor investigated in the death of Lodi teen Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez last spring, was fined $262,700 by the state [in July] for failure to follow heat illness prevention regulations at the time Jimenez was stricken.

Jimenez, a 17-year-old pregnant farm laborer, collapsed May 14 in a Farmington vineyard operated by West Coast Grape Farming and died two days later. Her death from heatstroke was ruled an occupational death by the San Joaquin County coroner.

State fines labor firm over death

Since then, five more farm workers have died from what appears to be heat-related causes.  

August 2, 2008: Maria de Jesus Alvarez.

July 31, 2008: Jorge Herrera.

July 9, 2008 Ramiro Carrillo Rodriguez.

July 9, 2008 Abdon Felix Garcia.  

June 20, 2008 Jose Macrena Hernandez.  

These deaths make it clear the state does not have the capacity to protect farm workers.  With all the budget cuts and other issues in California now, the state, even if well intentioned, simply has not been able to protect these workers.  So they must protect themselves.

We can make a difference and it will not take much.  

The vital legislation that Nunez has introduced–and the workers want to go to Sacramento and lobby for–protects farm workers’ right to a secret ballot election and will make it easier for farm workers to organize and enforce the laws that the state cannot enforce.

Please TAKE ACTION TODAY and ask California legislatures to support this vital bill. .

If you can’t attend please make a donation to help the United Farm Workers rent 14 buses, additional vans, plus pay for food and other supplies which will cost in excess of $31,770 for the day.

There is nothing more powerful than hearing a farm worker story face-to-face, especially to lawmakers.

Doroteo Jimenez, grape worker and uncle of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez who died in May explains why she must go to Sacremento.

I want to go to Sacramento and speak to the legislators.

My niece Maria Isabel died because growers treat us like tools instead of like people.  I spoke up and I was unjustly fired.  This needs to change now.  I don’t want to see other families suffer like our family has.  This bill can change farm workers’ lives for the better.

Please help us.

Margarita Hernandez, grape worker knows that that there must be changes in the workplace:

The reason for me to go to Sacramento is because I want changes in the working conditions at my job and the other companies. In the place where I work, Sun Pacific, we don’t have shade and the drinking water is without ice until 9 am-though they know that by that hour it is already hot. There have been people have felt sick from the heat and the company people always ask if they feel bad because of something they ate…I feel there is no respect for the farm worker, even though many farm workers have died. The companies don’t change their treatment towards the farm workers. That is why I am going to Sacramento. I have the hope that one day, we will be treated better.

Just to rent the buses and vans needed, will cost $26,570 and that does not cover the food and other supplies needed.

The UNF hopes that internet supporters would contribute $5,510 towards this expense.  This will cover the transportation costs of 140 workers at $39.36 per worker.   Let’s show them that Daily Kos can do it and more!

Can you make sure Doroteo, Margarita and others get seats on the bus?  

Where farm workers are protected by union contracts, the laws are honored.

And when growers know it is easier for farm workers to organize and bring in the union, employers are much more careful about obeying the law because they don’t want to give the union an advantage.

So the answer, sisters and brothers, is self-help-making it easier for farm workers to organize so the laws on the books are the laws in the fields. Then more important human beings like Maria Isabel won’t have to die.

Remarks by Arturo S. Rodriguez, President, United Farm Workers of America, Honoring Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, June 4, 2008

Please help.

Please TAKE ACTION TODAY and ask California legislatures to support this vital bill. .

If you can’t attend please make a donation to help the United Farm Workers rent 14 buses, additional vans, plus pay for food and other supplies which will cost in excess of $31,770 for the day.

Yesterday we mourned,

Today we act,

Tomorrow we will gain justice.

Si, Se Puede!

Just a quickie on a bunch of endorsements from over the weekend.  Xavier Becerra came out for Obama this weekend, which could combine with Ted Kennedy’s endorsement to provide a lot of support in the Latino community.  Apparently, Kennedy will be campaigning in California.  This is a counterweight to the United Farm Workers’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton last week.  But I was interested by Tom Hayden’s endorsement, not of Obama, but actually for the movement he has inspired.  From an email:

I have been devastated by too many tragedies and betrayals over the past 40 years to ever again deposit so much hope in any single individual, no matter how charismatic or brilliant. But today I see across the generational divide the spirit, excitement, energy and creativity of a new generation bidding to displace the old ways. Obama’s moment is their moment, and I pray that they succeed without the sufferings and betrayals my generation went through. There really is no comparison between the Obama generation and those who would come to power with Hillary Clinton, and I suspect she knows it. The people she would take into her administration may have been reformers and idealists in their youth, but they seem to seek now a return to their establishment positions of power. They are the sorts of people young Hillary Clinton herself would have scorned at Wellesley. If history is any guide, the new “best and brightest” of the Obama generation will unleash a new cycle of activism, reform and fresh thinking before they follow pragmatism to its dead end.

Many ordinary Americans will take a transformative step down the long road to the Rainbow Covenant if Obama wins. For at least a brief moment, people around the world — from the shantytowns to the sweatshops, even to the restless rich of the Sixties generation — will look up from the treadmills of their shrunken lives to the possibilities of what life still might be. Environmental justice and global economic hope would dawn as possibilities.

I’ve been saying for a while now that, regardless of the President, what will create this “change” that everyone’s been bandying about is we the people.  The coalition that Obama represents does offer an opportunity to build such a movement, at a level that Clinton does not appear to be attempting to build.  It’s certainly fragile, and may fracture once the Republicans prove resistant to a rhetoric of “post-partisanship” and working together.  But it’s our best hope.

(All workers deserve respect and decent working conditions. For more info, see the UFW site for this action. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Working Under The Gun
It’s Not Just an Expression

Workers of Starrh and Starrh Cotton Growers–a large cotton, hay, and almond producer in California–need your help. They need you to e-mail Cal OSHA immediately and tell them to investigate the violations at the ranch right away and prosecute the company to the fullest extent of the law. When you hear what the workers lives are like, you will be horrified…and furious. Please take a moment to help these workers by sending your e-mail today! Go to: http://www.ufwaction…

“I have been working for Starrh and Starrh for five years”, Alejandro Gil told us. “The working conditions are awful. We are exposed to a lot of dust and we do not have any protection. In the last two or three days, I have been feeling a pain in my chest and my back when I breathe…The owner’s brother-in-law always puts pressure on workers. He wants more production. The brother-in-law always carries a gun on his waist to scare workers.”

Take Action at: http://www.ufwaction…

“We never had bathrooms, fresh water or water to wash our hands. Sometimes we do not get any breaks. They put a lot of pressure on us to work faster. When I helped them packing hay, I worked up to 16 hours without breaks.” said Gerardo Negrete. “I am a sprayer and they do not give us what we need to protect ourselves from the chemicals. I have sprayed [pesticide] without gloves, masks or overalls. They only give those to us when we are close to roads where maybe some inspectors can see us…The foremen make fun of us for not having the protection we need.”

Francisco Villasaña, another 20-year employee, reports, “The foreman is abusive. Not only does he humiliate us, but he also does not provide us with fresh water–he actually drinks our water.”

Listening to these workers makes you wonder if we’ve stepped into a time warp. Really, how can this happen in 2007?

There are laws that say that workers need breaks for meals and to rest. There are laws that say that workers must have clean water to drink, and protection from sun and extreme heat. There are laws that say that workers must have bathrooms–for their own health–and that of the consumers who eat the food that comes from those fields.

Please send an e-mail to Cal OSHA–the agency responsible for protecting farm workers and enforcing these laws–and tell them to investigate these violations immediately and prosecute the company to the fullest extent of the law. Go to: http://www.ufwaction…