Subj: Farm worker heat safety bills go to CA Gov. Jerry Brown. Send an email NOW!
September 7, 2012
Farm worker heat safety bills go to CA Gov. Jerry Brown.
Send an email NOW!Dear YOU!
Tell California
Governor Jerry Brown
to sign the UFW's bills.
We have good news and bad news to share with you regarding the California Assembly votes last week.
The good news is the two critical UFW Heat Safety bills have passed 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.
On the other hand, the California Assembly rejected AB 1313 (Allen). The measure would have given farm workers the right to receive overtime pay for working more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week. Sadly, 16 Democrats chose not to vote on this critical bill leaving it to die on the floor and two Democrats even voted against it. One wonders how many of them gave speeches about workers' rights this past Labor Day weekend.
This pretense of support serves to remind us how critical it is for each and every one of us to send CA Governor Jerry Brown a message today asking him to sign these lifesaving bills. We can't assume he will sign the bills. We have to remind decision makers what is at stake.
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?
Again, thank you and Si Se Puede!
Jocelyn Sherman
UFW Internet Communications DirectorP.S.: After you take action please share this campaign with your friends and family. You can send them an e-mail, post this campaign on your Facebook and/or Twitter page by clicking here or going to http://action.ufw.org/page/share/heat12
Tweet: Lifesaving farm worker heat safety bills go to CA Gov Jerry Brown. Send an email NOW! Go to: http://action.ufw.org/heatsafety #ufw
Nico Gumbs
National Farm Worker Ministry
Youth and Young Adult Network
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