The decision by state and county officials to prioritize Californians 65 and older delayed vaccinations for thousands of farmworkers for several weeks as infections began spreading, prompting growers and doctors to step in to fill the void.
When Monterey County finally reached out to say they had a batch of up to 1,500 vaccine doses for farmworkers, Valadez said no thanks.
“It’s all good,” Valadez wrote to Elsa Jimenez, Monterey’s director of health, in an emailon March 22. “No need to update any further.” In a follow-up interview, Valadez called the state-provided doses “almost a moot point.” They were already running their vaccination site exclusively for farmworkers so they didn’t need them.
Cómo los agricultores tuvieron que eludir los programas estatales y del condado para vacunar a los trabajadores agrícolas kcet.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kcet.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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A federal judge recently heard arguments in farm groups lawsuit challenging Coachella, Calif.’s so-called “hero pay” ordinance requiring agricultural employers to pay workers an additional $4 per hour for at least 120 days.
The lawsuit filed by Western Growers, California Fresh Fruit Association and Growing Coachella Valley was heard May 14. It seeks a preliminary injunction on the grounds that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague, among other things.
U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb questioned several aspects of the ordinance, including provisions that could result in lawsuits and penalties if an employer halted or reduced operations to avoid operating losses that may result from paying the city’s mandated pay increase, according to Jason Resnick, Western Growers vice president and general counsel.
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CAITLIN ANTONIOS
CalMatters
In late January, Monterey Countyâs Board of Supervisors sent a letter to state leaders, urging them to prioritize its 64,000 farmworkers in one of the nationâs largest agricultural regions. A month later, Gov. Gavin Newsom visited a mobile vaccine clinic in Fresno, pledging tens of thousands of extra doses for farmworkers.
In turn, Chris Valadez, president of a nonprofit organization of growers, was confident he could run a mass vaccine clinic to vaccinate thousands of farmworkers. His group, the Grower-Shipper Association, partnered with Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas, a community-based health care provider.
But in late February, the state and county were focusing on vaccinating people 65 and older, so they didnât prioritize doses for farmworkers. With the Salinas Valley harvest season fast approaching, growers were worried that infections would start spreading, decimating their workforce.Â