How to protect farmworkers

At a CalMatters forum, a top official from a California labor agency emphasized Thursday the need for improved enforcement of laws designed to shield farmworkers from extreme heat, pesticide exposure, and other hazardous workplace conditions.

Moderated by CalMatters health reporter Ana B. Ibarra, the event in Bakersfield explored topics such as safety nets for farmworkers, mental health concerns, and injury and death from exposure to extreme heat.

Despite California's strict laws, programs, and resources aimed at safeguarding its nearly 500,000 farmworkers, significant challenges persist in protecting them, experts said during the panel. A recent UC Merced

study identified significant gaps in the health and well-being of these workers.

“We agree that enforcement needs to improve,” said Sebastian Sanchez, deputy secretary for Immigrant and Agriculture Workforce at the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, one of the panelists.

Other panelists included Edward Orozco Flores, the faculty director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, and Teresa Romero, the president of the United Farm Workers, which represents 7,000 farmworkers in California.

The experts attributed the persistent farmworker safety issues to inadequate state enforcement, workers' fear of retaliation, and employers' lack of awareness and compliance.

“They do not have a voice,” Romero said, referring to farmworkers. “They're afraid to report problems. They don't want to report it because they don't want to lose the job that is supporting their families.”

Orozco Flores said his study found that 64% of those who said they wouldn't file a complaint against their employers said they feared retaliation.

Romero mentioned some employers make their workers shift their labor to nighttime hours to avoid heat-related problems, which she said creates chaos in the farmworker family.

“It is cruel,” she said, asking the audience to consider the challenges they would face having to change their schedules on short notice and figuring out what to do with their families and kids.

A leader of an indigenous group from the audience pointed out that 35% of farmworkers who work in the fields are indigenous and don't speak Spanish. He asked the state to provide more information and training materials in Mixteco

and Triqui.

Sanchez agreed more needs to be done to develop training materials in indigenous languages and said his department has asked the governor's office for more funding.

Areceli Barrios, a member of the audience who said she spent 28 years working in the fields as a farmworker, described having to work at night and without sufficient water at times. She said she suffered abuse, heat, and sexual harassment.

“There were many injustices, but (a person) tolerates it because they don't have papers. No one helps you,” Barrios said in Spanish.

Dolores Huerta, the famous labor leader and civil rights activist, attended the event. She pointed out that she started organizing farmworkers when she was 25, and she is about to turn 94.

“The fact that we're still having these conversations means that we have failed,”

Huerta said. “All of us have to step up and do more. When we think about all the sacrifices farmworkers have made, there's no reason we should be in the same place we were 70 years ago.”

CalMatters events: The next one is scheduled for March 27 in Sacramento on maternity ward closures and state efforts to protect access.