Pinero's family to get benefit

By Tom Knudson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Ricardo Ponce Leon

A virtually anonymous undocumented forest worker in life, Ricardo Ponce Leon nearly went unnoticed in death, too.

Now, more than a year after the young pinero was crushed after falling off a trailer in rural Shasta County, his family will soon receive $21,120 in death benefits from the State Compensation Insurance Fund, a quasi-public California insurance company.

And the California Division of Workers Compensation, citing concern about the case, is stepping up its efforts to better inform Latino workers of their rights if they are injured or killed on the job.

Both the insurance company and the state agency credited The Bee's reporting about the fatality and widespread mistreatment of Latino workers in U.S. forests - published in three parts last week as "The Pineros: Men of the Pines" - for leading to the developments.

"We're grateful this has been brought to our attention," said Ron Christensen, spokesman for the state insurance company. "It's clear we did not act rapidly enough - and we genuinely regret that."

In the gullied countryside outside Morelia, Mexico, where Ponce was raised on a small farm with six brothers and sisters, long months of little or no contact with Ponce's employer, the state insurance company and California authorities have sown bitterness and anger.

"My son is dead," said Manuel Ponce, a brickmaker and small farmer. "Money is not going to bring him back. He was my oldest son. He meant a lot to me. I am really upset that I lost my son."

Reached by phone on Tuesday, Manuel Ponce pointed out that his son's body remained in the United States for nearly a month - longer than he worked in the woods - while the family received conflicting reports on whether or not he was dead.

"They were trying to make him lost," he said.

Like legions of young Mexicans, Ponce journeyed north in hopes of earning a bundle and sending some of the cash home to his family. In July 2004, he got his chance - on a job spraying herbicides for Total Forestry Inc., a contractor with offices in Redding and Medford, Ore.

Working on private land outside Redding, Ponce joined an industry of some 15,000 to 20,000 Latino forest workers - some legal, some not - who plant trees, battle brush and thin fire-prone forests on public and private land across the United States.

Ponce was hired on July 15, 2004. Two weeks later, on July 31, he wired his first $300 home to his mother, Rosario Leon. Five more days passed, then tragedy struck: Hopping onto the front of a trailer to catch a ride to a new job site, Ponce slipped, was run over by the trailer and killed.

A death certificate prepared Aug. 13 by the Shasta County deputy coroner reveals just how little was known about Ponce when he died. Residence: Unknown, the document reads. Years in Occupation: Unknown. Name of Father: Unknown. Name of Mother: Unknown.

Total Forestry notified the State Compensation Insurance Fund of Ponce's death. And then his case began to get lost. By law, all workers - documented or not - who are insured by their employers are entitled to benefits. But Ponce's case was complicated by the fact that he was using an alias - Pedro Blanco - Christensen said.

And, Christensen added, it bogged down when a claims adjuster did not follow up in tracking down a key piece of information: the receipt for the money transfer to Mexico, which established both that Ponce was supporting his family and that they were entitled to benefits.

Graciela Martinez, a Spanish-language radio show host and social worker in Visalia, said pineros - and their families - typically aren't aware they have rights.

"Before these people are sent up into the woods, they are not told what their rights are; they are not given a lot of information," said Martinez, a project coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee.

Christensen called the lapse in Ponce's case unacceptable. "It isn't a matter of trying to get out of the claim, or not pay it," he said "It's a matter of it just being in the system and people not keeping a tight track on it."

Jeffrey Webster, president of Total Forestry, said he was frustrated by the delay and pleased to hear of the payment. "It's great they finally did something," Webster said.

The death benefit payment was calculated through a complex formula that weighs such things as the money Ponce could have expected to make as a forest worker and the level at which he was supporting his family, Christensen said.

The $21,120 includes $1,920 in late fees. Most death benefit cases are settled in 30 to 90 days, Christensen said. This one has dragged on for 15 months. Christensen said the State Compensation Insurance Fund plans to hire an investigator who will carry the check to Mexico next week and hand-deliver it to Ponce's mother, Christensen said.

Susan Gard, information officer for the state division of workers' compensation, said lapses in the Ponce case have prompted the agency to begin conducting workshops with Latino laborers.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Tom Knudson can be reached at (530) 582-5336 or tknudson@sacbee.com. Bee staff writer Hector Amezcua contributed to this report.