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Knights Landing – Although it wasn’t even midday, the temperature had already been inched towards the triple digits, which felt even more heated for the scores of farm workers dressed in rows of watermelon plants in this field, shoved into the corner of the Sacramento River in the northern California capital. They were dressed in long sleeve shirts, pants, face coverings, and small spikes of watermelon grapes to protect their skin from the sun, so they stood many times and boned flowers from each plant.
Their boss, Jose Chavez, said he was trying to be vigilant about the risk of fever illness. That’s the lesson he said he learned the difficult methods after having to summon an ambulance into the fields of past summers.
“We learned from that,” he said. “When you take people to the hospital, that’s not interesting.”
However, the lessons are not sticking to many employers. Twenty years after California enacted its groundbreaking heat safety law, farm workers across the state are still sick and dying from sometimes preventable fever diseases. Supporters and some lawmakers say that a toothless enforcement system is often responsible.
The sun shines above workers harvesting tomatoes in the forest on Friday.
The law “fails due to a lack of enforcement. It’s not doing what it was intended,” said the former state senator D-San Jose, who carried the legislation last year, who was a former farm worker who made it easier for farm workers to receive compensation if they were hit by work illnesses. This measure was rejected by Gov. Gavin Newsom. “It’s like we should keep legislators at night. People are dying.”
Last month, California auditors denounced the California Department of Occupational Safety and Health, finding that, among other issues, workers failed to act appropriately when workers suffered from fever at work. The audit also found that agents were understaffed and many of their procedures were out of date.
Additionally, a time review of several recent fever deaths on a California farm found that CAL/OSHA has issued few or no penalties even when workers die. For example, in May 2023, a worker harvesting corn near Broly fell behind after his colleague complained of stomach pain and began to convulse. He was rushed to a hospital where he died of heat stroke, organ failure and “fundamental medical problems.” Records show that Cal/OSHA ended the investigation without penalty.
Farm workers clean up brushes from the farm irrigation channels in Woodlands.
Farm workers will repair tractors on a recently harvested field in Woodlands on Friday.
In a statement, Daniel Lopez, deputy director of CAL/OSHA Communications, said officials were “acknowledging the findings and recommendations of state auditors,” and said they were working to make improvements. The statement also said that CAL/OSHA recently created a farm enforcement task force to improve working conditions for farm workers.
The expiration of enforcement occurs when farm workers (many of whom lack legal status and deportation of fear) are already hesitant to speak up to their voices with complaints about working conditions. It is estimated that more than half of California’s approximately 350,000 farmers are undocumented.
As summer’s hottest temperatures drop this week, just as the harvest season peaks, and some say farm workers are facing more risks than ever before when the Trump administration intensifies immigrant raids across California.
“We’ve seen farm workers go again and again without the thermal safety protections that are legally entitled,” said Teresa Lomero, chairman of United Farm Workers Union. The state’s fever prevention and enforcement system is “not working.”
View from a drone of farm workers harvesting tomatoes in Woodlands on Friday.
California’s groundbreaking heat method was introduced in August 2005 at the time GOV. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced new measures while standing with a family of farm workers who died of heat stroke.
Cruz was the fourth farm worker to die in a cruel summer 20 years ago, and the fever death also claimed the man who picked peppers from Fresno County melon picker and Kern County grape picker. When the temperature was above 100 degrees, everything was working in the fields.
The rule was the first kind in the country, so bosses provide fresh water to outdoor workers, access shade when temperatures rise, breaking and breaking every time workers request. Employers should also have a fever disease prevention plan and training supervisor to recognize signs of fever stroke and seek medical assistance.
However, the law was far from a panacea. In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union and the United Farm Workers Union sued CAL/OSHA, stating that the law was too weak and that the agency’s enforcement was “severely inadequate.”
The lawsuit said 11 farm workers have been killed since the law was enacted.
Three years later, the public adviser at the nonprofit law firm filed another lawsuit, claiming that the state’s issues continued to fail to enforce, continuing to let farm workers die.
Farm workers maintain squash plants grown on forest farms on Friday.
In 2015, the state agreed to resolve both cases and focus on enforcing heat safety violations, making complaints more accessible.
Since the law was enacted, climate change has slammed the nation with more frequent and intense heat waves. And in recent years, execution issues have continued.
A 2022 survey by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center found that many farmers still work without protection. Of the more than 1,200 workers surveyed, 43% reported that their employers did not provide a fever disease prevention plan, and 15% said they did not have fever disease prevention training.
Last year, a Times survey found that Cal/OSHA testing fell 30% between 2017 and 2023, with the number of violations falling by more than 40%.
Rep. Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro) said last year there were “dangerous and illegal” working conditions on many California farms. “To say I’m furious is an understatement,” she said. “I don’t want to hear any more excuses. That’s an excuse after every excuse.”
This year, MP Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) introduced another proposed law, similar to one Newson rejected last year, making farm workers more vulnerable to compensation. The bill, facing opposition from the farm’s interests, was approved by Congress, but at the end of the legislative meeting.
Farm workers will adjust the machinery while harvesting tomatoes in Woodlands on Friday.
As the heat wave settles in California this week, workers at Watermelon Field near Knights Landing said they would get work early at 6am, leave early and stay in front of the heat.
As the sun hit, jugs were stationed every few yards, and tarps provided shade coverage around the crop rows.
Boss Chavez said he has never seen workers suffering from recent heat stress. “Thank you to God, not this year,” he said.
This article is part of the Times Equity Report initiative funded by the James Irvine Foundation, which examines the challenges faced by low-income workers and efforts to address economic disparities in California.
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