Juan Peña, 28, has worked in the fields since childhood, often exposing his body to extreme heat like the wave hitting the Midwest this week.
The heat can cause such deep pain in his whole body that he just wants to lie down, he said. It sucks his desire to work, as his body tells him he can't take another hot day on the job. On those days, his only motivation to get out of bed is to earn dollars to send to his 10-month-old baby in Mexico.
Farmworkers, such as Peña and the crew he leads in Iowa, are unprotected against heat-related illnesses. They are 35 times more likely to die from heat exposure than workers in other sectors, according to the National Institutes of Health, and the absence of a federal heat regulation that guarantees their safety and life - when scientists have warned that global warming will continue - increases that risk.
Over a six-year period, 121 workers lost their lives due to exposure to severe environmental heat. One-fifth of these fatalities were individuals employed in the agricultural sector, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration data.
One such case involved a Nebraska farmworker who suffered heat stroke alone and died on a farm in the early summer of 2018. A search party found his body the next day.
In early July 2020, a worker detasseling corn in Indiana experienced dizziness after working for about five hours. His coworkers provided him shade and fluids before they resumed work. The farmworker was found lying on the floor of the company bus about 10 minutes later. He was pronounced dead at the hospital due to cardiac arrest.
"As a physician, I believe that these deaths are almost completely preventable," said Bill Kinsey, a physician and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Until we determine as a society the importance of a human right for people to work in healthy situations, we are going to see continued illness and death in this population."
Peña harvests fields in Texas and Iowa. This summer, he's overseen five Mexican seasonal workers picking vegetables and fruits in eastern Iowa. With its high humidity and heat, Iowa's climate causes the boys, as he affectionately refers to them, to end their day completely wet, as if they had taken "a shower with their clothes on," he said. They work up to 65 or 70 hours a week to meet their contractual obligations.
"I'm lucky because my bosses are considerate (when it's hot)," he said in Spanish, recalling that he managed to endure temperatures as high as 105 degrees in Texas. "I've had bosses who, if they see you resting for a few minutes under a tree to recover yourself, think you're wasting your time and send you home without pay."
Some of his friends have been less fortunate, and a few minutes of rest have been cause for dismissal, he said.
The fatalities scratch the surface of what is a more extensive issue, according to health experts, academics and advocacy groups, who say the data on heat illnesses and death is inadequate.
"There is a massive undercount," said Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for United Farm Workers.
She said it is common for the death of a person who died after a heat stroke to be classified as a caused by a heart attack on an autopsy.
Strater said a few reasons make it difficult to quantify the problems farmworkers face. The population's size is unknown. Many are undocumented. And, in general, they move around a lot and live in isolated areas. "Everything to do with farmworkers is particularly difficult because we don't know," she said.
An estimated 2.4 million people work on farms and ranches nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's census of agriculture. This population, mostly Latino, is roughly equal to the population of Chicago. About half are undocumented.
A possible federal standard
Although employers are generally responsible for ensuring a safe working environment that protects their employees' well-being and lives, no federal regulation stipulates a specific temperature threshold that mandates protective measures.
Nearly four in 10 farmworkers are unwilling to file a complaint against their employer for noncompliance in the workplace, mostly out of fear of retaliation or losing their job, according to survey data of California farmworkers conducted by researchers at the University of California Merced Community and Labor Center.
Only four states have adopted outdoor workplace heat-stress standards, and none of them are in the Midwest. California was the first to implement such standards, followed by Oregon, Washington, and Colorado.
This leaves the protection of agricultural workers from heat stress at the discretion of their employers in most states.
OSHA has been working on a heat-stress rule since 2021 that will require employers to provide adequate water and rest breaks for outdoor workers, as well as medical services and training to treat the signs and symptoms of heat-related illnesses. However, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report, this process can take from 15 months to 19 years.
OSHA officials would not comment on the pending federal heat standard.
Last year, the Asuncion Valdivia Heat Stress Injury, Illness, and Death Prevention Act, which would force OSHA to issue a heat standard much faster than the normal process, failed to advance through Congress.
The bill was named in honor of Asuncion Valdivia, who died in 2004 after picking grapes for 10 hours non-stop in 105-degree heat. Valdivia collapsed unconscious and, instead of calling an ambulance, his employer told his son to take his father home. On the way home, he died of heat stroke at 53.
Source: publicnewsservice.org
Photo Credit: gettyimages-jacqueline-nix
Categories: Indiana, Business