Heat-related farm deaths rise in California

updated 8:06 p.m. ET Aug. 20, 2008

RAISIN CITY, Calif. - California, the nation's leader in heat-related deaths among farmworkers, sought to turn that trend around three years ago with new laws aimed at ensuring people toiling in sweltering fields had such basics as a water break and an umbrella for shade. But if anything, the problem has gotten worse.

Since then, 12 farmworkers have died in suspected heat stroke deaths, six this year alone. That's twice the number of such deaths in the nearly three years before the laws were passed.

An Associated Press investigation found that an understaffed labor agency fails to consistently hold farms and labor contractors accountable for heat deaths or ensure they pay for violations and improve conditions in one of the most brutal jobs in America.

One recent high-profile death of a pregnant, teenage vineyard worker led Cal-OSHA — the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health — to issue a record fine of more than $262,000. But the fines often drop when appealed and have averaged less than $10,000 in other heat-related deaths. In one case, it ended up at just $250.

Currently, 210 state inspectors look for heat-related violations and other safety hazards at farms and all other kinds of work sites. But with just one inspector for every roughly 90,000 workers in California, the gaps are evident.

One day last month in Raisin City, about 20 miles southwest of Fresno, the owner of a cherry-tomato farm was fined $3,365 for violations that included offering no first aid and nothing to drink except a jug of foul, undrinkable water. But about 20 miles away in Kingsburg that same day, Ramiro Carrillo died after hand-picking nectarines in the 112-degree sun; he had gone home after apparently telling co-workers he felt sick.

"Why did no one run over to help him in an emergency? Maybe his life could have been saved," asked his grieving sister Natividad, who said she also fainted from heat stroke this year after pruning bushes at a San Joaquin Valley nursery. "People's lives are being lost but sometimes I wonder if anyone cares if another Mexican immigrant dies."

Stepping up sweeps
Only firefighters suffer from heat stroke at a higher rate than farmworkers, and no occupation sees more deaths from it.

Cal-OSHA Chief Len Welsh said inspectors have stepped up sweeps through the fields this summer in anticipation of a deadly string of heat waves, and set each penalty according to strict formulas.

"You see people crouching underneath tractors when you go out in the fields. We think workers should be able to rest with dignity," Welsh said. "If somebody doesn't have shade up and available for workers this summer, they're going to get a whooping."

Violations are common: The agency conducted 1,018 heat inspections last year and found that 490 companies had violated heat illness laws.

The AP review, however, found that authorities have yet to collect fines in several heat death cases. In four of the cases, the agency's appeals board cut the fines by around half, or sometimes more.

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