MERCED – The company that employed the 17-year-old girl who died of a heatstroke has been shut down by the state for a second time after briefly reopening.
Merced Farm Labor sent its laborers back to the fields this week after it proved to Cal-OSHA that it met all heat protection requirements. The agency had shut the company down in mid-June because it wasn't making sure that all employees received heat training.
On Thursday afternoon at a Keyes vineyard, state inspectors found the company wasn't meeting the regulations. They ordered the company to close until the issue is resolved. "They're lacking in providing the level of protection we need," Cal-OSHA spokesman Dean Fryer said. "They had a brief window to step up and it's not happening."
Fryer didn't know which of the four main heat safety requirements – training, water, shade and having an emergency plan – the company was failing to meet.
Labor officials will meet with company managers, probably Monday, to resolve the problems. Then it could reopen.
The company announced Wednesday that it had resumed its operations. Officials couldn't be reached for comment about the state closing it again.
Cal-OSHA has kept close tabs on the company to ensure it's following all labor regulations following the death of María Isavel Vásquez Jiménez.
The United Farm Workers was "appalled" the business would be allowed to reopen after her May 16 death from work-related heatstroke.
The death caused renewed attention to farm labor companies, and state officials shut down Merced Farm Labor to keep its workers out of danger because it failed to meet all the heat illness prevention rules.
Cal-OSHA lifted the ban late last week, though the company waited to reopen until Monday so it could make sure it had all the training programs in place.
As a condition of reopening, the contractor had to tell Cal-OSHA where its workers will be every morning.
Proving it's following labor laws is just one of the hurdles Merced Farm Labor will required to clear in the coming months.
California Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet is in the midst of the 30- to 90-day process to revoke its contracting license. The state is scheduling a hearing so both sides can present their case to a judge.
The effort to strip the company's license stems from its failure to disclose that it didn't train employees on how to avoid heat stress. It was cited in 2006 and never took care of the violations.
Cal-OSHA is still investigating Vásquez Jiménez's death, and her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Merced Farm Labor and West Coast Grape Farming Inc., where she collapsed.
