Tim Hearden California Farm Bureau Federation, Western Growers, Grower-Shipper Association are among the plaintiffs.
Dec 31, 2020
A coalition of agricultural and business employers has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court challenging the COVID-19 related emergency temporary standards recently approved by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board.
The complaint alleges, among other things, that the Board lacks statutory authority to impose many of the sweeping measures of the ETS on California employers.
For California’s multi-generational farmers, the health and safety of their employees and the consumers they serve is their top priority.
“In the weeks and months following Governor Newsom’s emergency declaration in March, California farmers and processors moved quickly to implement dramatic new safety practices aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace,” said Dave Puglia, President & CEO of Wester
Why few farm workers isolate in California’s free Covid-19 hotel rooms
Gary Kazanjian
Despite the heavy toll of Covid-19 on California’s farm workers, Gavin Newsom’s pandemic housing program made just 81 hotel reservations for ag workers as of December 16.
In the first days of August, Fresno farm worker Brenda Yamileth, lined up for a Covid-19 test alongside her mother and brother. Feverish and headachy, she held her 10-month-old daughter. Soon, all four tested positive.
Pictured above: María Reyes, who tested positive for Covid-19, quarantines at her home in Mendota on Dec. 12, 2020. Reyes declined a hotel room with Housing for the Harvest out of concern she would have to leave her teenage daughter.
March 18, 2021
The need seemed self-evident across the state, too. About four in 10 Californians who live with an agricultural or food processing worker also live in an overcrowded home defined as having more people than rooms according to a CalMatters analysis of census data.
But the farmworking community has largely declined to use the state-sponsored housing. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, 81 rooms have been booked as of Dec. 16 across 12 counties. The program launched in San Luis Obispo County as well, but has not yet seen any guests. Reservation totals may be higher than the actual number of guests, though, as counties say some cancelled.