The workers who labor picking our food not only risk their lives in the summer heat, they take risks when they try to exercise their rights.
Many farmworkers – not all – are undocumented immigrants. Since their status is so precarious, they can ill afford to press supervisors for water breaks and other safety measures that became part of state rules in 2005.
To top it off, many workers opt to be paid on a "piece rate" basis, which creates a financial incentive for them to work as hard and fast as they can. In a story on Thursday, The Bee's Susan Ferriss spent some time in the fields with Francisco Muñoz, who was frantically picking hundreds of pounds of tomatoes each hour, sweat dripping down his face.
By doing so, Muñoz could brag he was earning $20 an hour.
But at what cost?
Since May, 12 workers have died in California because of heat-related job deaths. Six of those have been Latino farmworkers, and four of them were paid on a piece-rate basis.
One of these was Jorge Herrera, 37, who was loading table grapes onto a truck July 10 when he passed out and was taken to a Bakersfield hospital. Officials there say Herrera's core body temperature reached 108 degrees, which damaged his brain, lungs and kidneys.
According to Herrera's brother Gerardo, Jorge earned about 7 cents per box he loaded and earned up to $250 a day.
Those figures give a hint of why farm contractors and laborers like the piece-rate pay. Contractors can get more production out of fewer laborers while strong-backed workers can earn more money than they could at $8 an hour. But this system gives neither party much incentive to focus on safety concerns. Indeed, they have an incentive to put safety at the bottom their priority lists.
Under current rules, all full-time workers in California are entitled to two 10-minute rest breaks and a lunch period each day. Since 2005, workers are also entitled to a heat-recovery break, which must include at least five minutes in 100 percent shade.
But because these regulations were a compromise between farm industries and other interests, supervisors are not required to provide the heat break. Instead, the burden is on laborers to ask for the break, even if it results in a drop in pay.
As is now clear, these well- intentioned regulations will not overcome the tendency of piece-rate laborers to work through their rightful breaks, even on the hottest days.
Employers, farm-labor groups and health organizations need to revisit these rules. So does Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed bills in 2004 and 2005 that would have required employers to compensate piece-rate workers for the money they lose during 10-minute breaks. What's needed is a clear line of responsibility, from the contractor to the farmer, to provide reasonable precautions for people who labor on the hottest of days.
Without that, every season could bring a harvest of tragedy in California's fields.
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