Vineyard workers fight for fire safety
Demands valid but won’t be met this year, officials say
Uncertainty and fear. Those are the words Anayeli Guzman, a farmworker from Oaxaca, Mexico, used to describe her experience working in an evacuation zone during the 2017 wildfires in Sonoma County.
Through a translator, Guzman recounted seeing flames as she picked grapes in a remote vineyard that had no exits through the forested area close by. Meanwhile, in a different part of the county, her daughter was being evacuated from her home, but Guzman didn’t feel like she could leave for fear of being fired.
Guzman found herself working in a fire zone due to what’s known as an “ag pass,” a program established by the county during the 2017 fires to allow farm and vineyard owners, along with their workers, to enter wildfire evacuation zones to continue operations. This includes the crucial harvesting of wine grapes before smoke ruins the crop. Napa County and many other California agricultural counties have similar systems, none of which have been formalized by legislation.
The ag pass is intended to protect the livelihoods of farmers, grape growers and winery owners. But a grassroots effort that began growing in Sonoma County last year argues that it also presents very real dangers to their workers — who are sometimes asked to risk their health and safety by entering smoke-filled fire zones.
Called North Bay Jobs With Justice, a local coalition of community organizations, allies and activists has created a list of five demands, including hazard pay and disaster insurance, that they want added to the ag pass program ahead of the 2022 fire season. As the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors plans to finalize some of its legislative calendar on Tuesday, the coalition is doubling down on its efforts.
The effort, though, faces opposi
“Another year of ... kicking it to the state and waiting would be harmful and disrespectful to workers.”
Davida Soleto Escobedo, communications and research coordinator at North Bay Jobs With Justice
tion. County officials say the demands are unlikely to be added to the calendar ahead of fire season, calling the issue far too complex to resolve with swift legislative action. Critics, mostly winery and vineyard owners or vineyard management companies, insist they are paying workers fairly and taking the proper safety precautions. They don’t believe they should pay for work that isn’t completed, which would fall under the group’s demand for disaster insurance. Some are even calling it “a shakedown,” fearing that this is a step in workers unionizing, efforts that have long been thwarted in Napa and Sonoma.
But for the workers, getting more protections before another harvest — and potential fire season — is urgent. Particles in wildfire smoke contain toxic metals which, according to a study out of the University of California, can be 10 times more toxic than car exhaust. These metals can lead to health risks, including high blood pressure, cancer and reproductive effects.
“Last year, we got lucky,” said Davida Soleto Escobedo, communications and research coordinator at North Bay Jobs With Justice, referring to an uneventful 2021 fire season. “Another year of an interim program or kicking it to the state and waiting would be harmful and disrespectful to workers.”
A petition for the movement has collected more than 2,000 signatures, though there are more than 11,000 farmworkers in Sonoma County. North Bay Jobs started delivering its demands to dozens of Sonoma County wineries last year, and roughly 300 farmworkers and coalition members picketed an event at Healdsburg’s Simi Winery in November. Yet few wineries have engaged with their demands, which is why the coalition is now looking to the county to add worker protections to the ag pass.
Hazard pay is a top request. While there are no federal laws that mandate hazard pay, it is commonplace across many industries, like the military, mining and construction. Next is disaster insurance. Most winery and vineyard owners have coverage for lost crop, but workers don’t typically receive assistance to make up for lost income when fires prevent them from working. This was the case in 2020, when the majority of grapes weren’t even harvested because of widespread smoke taint.
North Bay Jobs With Justice said that insurance would protect their income and employment, empowering workers to decline going into hazardous evacuation zones if they’re uncomfortable. Currently, many workers fear working in wildfire conditions but also worry about being fired or not hired back. They can’t afford to not work; according to the U.S. Department of Labor, a quarter of farmworkers across the country live below the federal poverty line.
Guzman and fellow vineyard worker Anabel Garcia both made the decision to leave what they considered to be dangerous environments in recent wildfire events on separate jobs. Neither was hired back by the respective companies.
“The contractors and winery owners’ main concern is getting the product out, not the health of the people,” Garcia said through a translator. “They don’t think about how we go out every day and produce these riches with our labor.”
The group is also requesting that evacuation and safety training be provided in Indigenous languages such as Chatino and Mixteco, and that workers have access to clean bathrooms and water at vineyard sites during harvest and fires.
The final request is one of the more controversial ones. The workers are asking for “community safety observers” to be allowed on vineyard sites to report safety violations to Cal/ OSHA, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health tasked with protecting and improving the health and safety of California workers.
According to the coalition, Cal/OSHA is severely understaffed with just 10 inspectors covering the five-county district that includes Sonoma. These safety observers would be volunteers from the community; North Bay Jobs said 30 members of organizations connected to the coalition have already volunteered and received fire safety training. A deployment plan of these volunteers to vineyard sites is not yet in place and will be created in case of a wildfire.
Phil Coturri, a California pioneer of organic farming, believes that the majority of Sonoma County wineries and vineyards are following Cal/ OSHA protocols. Nevertheless, he predicts that many, including himself, will object to having these volunteers on-site, as they would have to undergo the same rigorous safety training that the workers do, regardless of training they received from North Bay Jobs With Justice. He would need to seek permission from the owners of the vineyards his company oversees as well.
There’s also the threat of unionizing, which has historically been opposed in Wine Country. Despite multiple movements, unions have not become commonplace in Sonoma, where most wineries are small, independent businesses that have previously argued that unions would be too costly.
“Our workers are our most important asset,” said Coturri, who added that his company Enterprise Vineyard Management doesn’t bring in crews to harvest during wildfires. “I don’t have all the answers, but we collectively as an industry have to make sure that our farmworkers have a livable wage. Our best tool is having legitimate, full-time and skilled farmworkers and we have to treat them with respect.”
Sonoma County Fourth District Supervisor James Gore said he supports aspects of the farmworkers’ campaign but thinks the issue requires more research. Instead of an immediate change to the ag pass, he has established a subcommittee dedicated to looking into the complexities of evacuation zone policies. The ag pass program and farmerworker safety will be studied, as well as a myriad of other topics such as evacuation zone access for winery employees and people who need to retrieve medications or their pets.
The committee will investigate the issue by consulting with members of the private sector, like farmworkers and activists, winery owners and wine growers. It will also speak with several government bodies, including county agriculture and equity departments, Cal/OSHA and emergency services. Based on the findings, the committee will then develop a recommendation to the county on its next move, which may include legislative action.
“Committee work is important to go into issues that are not one-dimensional,” Gore said. “It’s for priority issues that you need to vet further and have a deeper dive.”
He also believes the program is a statewide issue that should be consistent across all California counties.
Gov. Gavin Newsom did recently sign legislation (AB1103) to standardize ag pass systems. But after groups such as the California Association of Wine Growers opposed it, Newsom narrowed the law to apply only to livestock producers. Meanwhile, the Sonoma County administration department confirmed that an interim ag pass program is under development — but there’s no word on its timing or how it might affect farmworker safety and benefits.
The subcommittee’s recommendation, new state legislation or the county’s interim program are not likely to be completed by the coalition’s proposed June 1 deadline.
But the coalition says that enough is enough. Escobedo of North Bay Jobs points out that the marginalization of farmworkers in the U.S. dates back to the 1930s, and despite some improvements continues today. As recently as last year, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have enabled farmworkers to vote to unionize by mail as absentees. Many migrant workers are undocumented; denied certain federal rights and protections, they keep their heads down over fear of deportation.
So advocates are adamant that revamping the ag pass requires immediate action given the frequency and unpredictability of wildfires as a result of climate change.
“As long as we don’t take action to address these concerns, it’s not only disrespectful to the farmworkers who put their bodies on the line to pick the grapes that the entire industry is built on,” said Escobedo, “but it’s really reflective of a total disregard toward the dangers we all face as a community moving forward.”