UFW Heat Bills of 2012:
AB 2346 (Butler) & AB 2676 (Calderon)

• AB 2346 seeks to reduce heat-related deaths among farm workers in California.
  
  
• At least 16 farm workers have died since the state issued an emergency regulation related to heat illness in 2005. Cal/OSHA is investigating two more possible farm worker heat illness deaths this summer. Since all these deaths were preventable, it is clear the regulation and state enforcement are ineffective by themselves.
  
  
• In most of the 16 cases where a farm worker has died, the employer deprived the farm workers of adequate water and shade multiple times. These bad actors prey on the state’s inability to enforce the law. This bill will create more meaningful disincentives for repeat offenders who deprive farm workers of water and shade.
  
  
• From its own 2009 files, Cal/OSHA has failed to issue citations in more than 120 instances in which its inspections determined that serious problems exist. In that same year, Cal/OSHA repeatedly withdrew citations and reduced fines, even for violations so egregious that the agency temporarily shut down the employer’s operations. And, for more than three-dozen heat-related complaints in 2009, Cal/OSHA did not conduct any inspections at all.
  
  
• Last summer, in 2011, the UFW filed more than 75 serious heat illness complaints with Cal/OSHA. Cal/OSHA issued heat citations for only three of those complaints. And, for at least 2/3 of those complaints – more than 50 – Cal/OSHA did not even complete the inspection.
  
  
• AB 2346 assures that agricultural employers provide water and shade to their employees.
  
  
• AB 2346 gives farm workers the ability to take a repeat offender to court. It is a fiscally responsible response to the state's fiscally impossible enforcement obligations. It is a deterrent that need never be used.
  
  
• Unfortunately, heat-related deaths are a reminder that agriculture is one of the few industries in this state and country where a person can be worked to death. Without AB 2346, protecting farm workers only through the regulatory process is simply a good intention.
  

The UFW’s lifesaving heat safety bills AB 2346, the Farm Worker Safety Act (Butler) and AB 2676 (Calderon), Humane Treatment for Farm Workers Act have been approved by the Senate and the Assembly and are now on California Governor Brown’s desk.

AB 2346 (Butler), The Farm Worker Safety Act of 2012, will allow farm workers to sue employers who repeatedly fail to comply with mandatory requirements for shade and drinking water. It would make growers and the farm labor contractors they hire jointly liable if contractors fail to supply farm workers with shade and water under California’s hot summer sun.

AB 2676 (Calderon), the Humane Treatment of Farm Workers Act, says agricultural employers must treat farm workers at least as well as animals, by providing shade and water or face the same criminal penalties—punishable by jail time and fines.

We can’t assume Governor Brown will sign these bills as the opposition is lobbying intensely.

Farm worker lives rely on these bills because the state just doesn’t have the resources to adequately enforce its heat standards. According to an August 22, 2012 editorial in the Desert Sun, "Last year only 1,090 heat inspections were conducted on California’s 81,500 farms. At that rate, many violations could go unnoticed."

Since California issued its 2005 regulations to keep farm workers from dying of extreme heat, preventable farm worker deaths have continued to occur at a similar pace. In most of these cases where a farm worker has died, the employer deprived the farm workers of adequate water and shade multiple times. This summer, state regulators are again investigating two possible heat-related farm worker deaths.

Let’s all do our part in saving farm worker lives. Could you please send a message to Governor Brown today and request that he sign AB 2346 and AB 2676 into law?

http://action.ufw.org/heat12