Here are personal testimonies from some of the youth who participated:

“We arrived and ate at a lunchroom and later entered a building and did some icebreakers. The following day we did some workshops and learned about ethics, starting new a business, and business handling. I really liked meeting new people and the welcome they gave us.”
–Jose, 14-years-old

The New Year has barely started and the first farming fatality of 2012 has already occurred. Anthony Siquieros, 31, died on January 2^nd in a baling operation accident involving a power take-off shaft in Rapid City, South Dakota, leaving behind a wife and four children. His funeral was held last Saturday.

The Meade County Sheriff’s Department stated that workers were converting round hay bales into square bales when Siquieros’ clothing got caught in a power takeoff shaft. It was his first day on the job.

OSHA has no jurisdiction to investigate this tragic accident. By law, small agricultural operations, defined as a farm with less than 10 employees, are exempt from investigation after an accident or death. OSHA is required to address imminent danger situations, which are hazards that could cause death or serious physical harm. It cannot, however, vigilantly inspect all 7 million work places it covers in the United States each year. Priorities have to be set, and with those choices, unfortunately come real consequences.

The fact is that more than 12 workers are killed on the job every day according to OSHA statistics from 2010, which is the most recent data available. Fatalities in farm work reached 596 in 2010, which constitutes the highest fatality rate of any industry at 26.8 per 100,000 workers. 

The factors resulting in Siquieros’ death are still unknown. Perhaps, as it was the first day on his new job, he hadn’t been properly trained on the equipment he was using. Perhaps the safety shield of the equipment had been removed, which is a common, but very dangerous practice to speed work along. Lack of appropriate training that is culturally and linguistically sensitive, as well as failure to provide and enforce the use of safety equipment, are detrimental to occupational health and safety of workers. Accidents and deaths are also sometimes the result of insufficient supervision of inexperienced employees or employees who have taken on jobs for which they are not properly trained.

To diminish farming fatalities and injuries in 2012, there must be widespread trainings in a variety of health and safety topics that can truly reach the farmworker audience. Culturally and linguistically appropriate, interactive trainings and low-literacy, multilingual materials that are distributed before farmworkers start working are a crucial part of saving lives. AFOP’s Health & Safety Programs has already been doing that with its innovative pesticide safety trainings and heat stress prevention trainings all around the country. We hope to expand our repertoire of topics offered in the near future, thanks to a new Capacity Building Grant from the OSHA Susan Harwood funds.

]]> http://afop.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/the-fields-claim-first-life-in-2012/feed/ 0 vstackl Valentina http://afop.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/confronting-hardship-farmworker-women-in-florida/ http://afop.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/confronting-hardship-farmworker-women-in-florida/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:50:41 +0000 Valentina Stackl, Health and Safety Program Associate, AFOP http://afop.wordpress.com/?p=597 Continue reading →]]> Last year, for the first time, AFOP’s Health & Safety Programs published The Fields, an in depth annual publication on farmworker health issues. This year’s edition will focus on farmworker women’s health. We chose to write about farmworker women because in a world where farmworkers are at the very bottom of the power hierarchy, women are found even below that: they not only work tirelessly to pick the fruits and vegetables we eat, they also work and worry endlessly to improve the lives of their own families.

The frightening reach of the disturbing immigration laws in Alabama have not only put a toll on the immigration communities in Alabama, but on the entire east coast migrant stream. This stream has brought migrant farmworkers from the tomato fields in Florida all the way up to the cherry packing houses in Michigan for decades.  As a result of the current immigration climate, Immokalee, Florida has become a somewhat destitute town. Mobile homes; small, square houses; and rundown shacks are boarded up and abandoned. After harvesting up North during the summer, many farmworkers were too scared to return to Florida. These changes in the law have serious consequences, not only for farmworkers, but for growers, and the entire state economy.

In preparation for this new and exciting edition of the Fields, I traveled from our national office in Washington, D.C. to Florida to interview farmworker women about health issues they confront every day. Through AFOP’s great partnerships with Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), South Florida Community College, and Immokalee Technical Center, I was able to interview over 20 women during my stay.  It was an amazing opportunity that provided me with invaluable information, gleaned from the experiences of the  people who harvest much of the fruits and vegetables we as American’s enjoy.

During the interview, it became all too clear that many farmworkers’ lives are so riddled with hardship that they no longer can identify adversity.  At first, it was difficult to get the information I wanted about the health issues they face. I was expecting detailed stories, such as not being able to see a doctor on a regular basis, the consequences of pesticide exposure, and stories about farmworkers collapsing in the fields as a result of heat-related illness. Instead, they dodged my questions, reassuring me they are hard workers who care for their families. They said they worry about providing food for their children and thank God they have never gotten so sick they had to be taken to the hospital.

Yet it was the side conversations, the anecdotes that seemed to be apropos to what they thought I needed from them that were the most painful to hear during the interviews. One woman explained that she had to take her child to work every day, because she had no one to take care of him. The child had to learn to climb into a tree and hide from the supervisor from a very young age. The mother was scared for her child’s well-being, but she had no other place to take him. Another woman’s eye was red, swollen, and bloodshot, which I found out during the interview was a result of the pesticides that are being sprayed in the field she worked at. Yet another woman in the interview stated that even though laws in Florida prohibit it, she waited for three hours that day without pay before she was allowed to officially clock in and begin being paid for work.

The woman whose child was almost bitten by a poisonous snake when she laid him on a blanket by her side as she was picking oranges; the woman who has never gone to the doctor, ever; the woman who was harassed and tolerated sexual advances every day by her crew leader’s father- and could do nothing about it for fear of losing her job; these are the same women who when first questioned, did not seem to believe they had faced adversity.

Farmworker women might work 12 hours without a break at the packinghouse, laboring throughout the night, and then get home just in time to get their children ready for school. Most farmworkers have very limited access to transportation. They try to get rides and, if they can’t, they bike. Some even walk miles to get to work. They cook for their families and clean. They painstakingly make tortillas for lunch. Their hands are dirty and callused. They worry about their children, husbands, neighbors, and friends. They worry about their parents in Mexico whom they send money back to. They worry about their siblings. Least of all, they worry about themselves. In fact, very few people worry about them.

What to us is unimaginable hardship, to them is just another day. Violation, or unjust, or unfair, doesn’t even cross their mind: they work because they have to, no matter the condition. Some employers are better than others. Some crew leaders kinder than the next. But their main purpose, always in the front of their mind, is to work as hard as possible, pick as fast as possible, pick as much as possible, to survive, to save, to try to make their children’s lives just a little bit more tolerable, a little bit better.

To learn more about farmworker women’s health issues request a copy of The Fields: Farmworker Women, due to be published in the spring 2012, by emailing Valentina Stackl at stackl@afop.org.

Children, because they are still developing mentally and physically, are not equipped to work in dangerous jobs. According to the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), between 1995 and 2002, an estimated 907 youth died on farms in the United States, making that over 100 preventable deaths of children per year. Half of those children who die are under 15 years of age.

A farmworker youth operates a forklift. Driving a forklift is deemed hazardous work and strictly reserved for adults in all industries except agriculture.

It is difficult to dispute the dangers farmworker youth face each day when the headlines report the untimely deaths of youth on farms, such as the Illinois teens Jade Garza and Hannah Kendall, both 14, who were electrocuted this past summer. Instead of addressing facts documenting the dangerous reality, the debate has centered on whether these risks are worth the preservation of these agricultural “traditions.” Additionally, most Americans are unaware of the other youth working in agriculture: the children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. These children have few possibilities of owning their own farms in the future, despite the number of years they work in the fields or how young they start to work on farms. These children are not taught lessons on what is the best type of crop to grow by the farm owners whose farms they work on; instead they are taught to push their bodies to the breaking point to earn the minimum wage.

Today in America, it is illegal for children to smoke cigarettes due to health dangers, yet children as young as 12 are allowed to work harvesting and curing tobacco. According to a report from U.S. Public Health Service, children working in tobacco fields may be exposed to nicotine levels equivalent to smoking 36 cigarettes per day. These are the types of dangers the proposed hazard orders will protect farmworker children from.

Contrary to some claims, the proposed changes to the agricultural hazardous orders will not keep youth off of farms. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, children are allowed to start working on farms at the age of 12, and can begin performing hazardous work at the age of 16; this will remain true whether the proposed changes are implemented or not. Furthermore, the family farm exemption will not be changed by the proposed hazardous orders.

In order to have a thriving American agricultural industry, the conversation must be around topics such as sustainability and the equal access to capital for those trying to start their own small farm. Protecting the well-being of children should be our priority, not the business of farming. All children deserve to be protected equally under the law and no one industry deserves this kind of exemption at the expense of farmworker children’s health and futures.

]]> http://afop.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/wsj-neglects-to-present-the-facts-on-child-labor-rules/feed/ 0 nfloresy norma kid driving tractor http://afop.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/safe-americorps-end-of-service/ http://afop.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/safe-americorps-end-of-service/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:58:21 +0000 Melanie Forti, Health & Safety Programs Program Coordinator, AFOP http://afop.wordpress.com/?p=585 Continue reading →]]> Last week, 16 of AFOP’s SAFE AmeriCorps members from around the country came together to celebrate their End of Service Ceremony in Washington, D.C.  The day started with an exciting professional development training conducted by Nelson Diaz, an Employment Market Specialist at Telamon Corporation in Virginia.  Among the topics discussed were, “Evaluating Yourself/Understanding the Labor Market” and “Creating Powerful Resumes/Preparing for the Job.”  Members really enjoyed this training and got many professional tools for them to use in their lives after SAFE AmeriCorps.

Later that day, a beautiful graduation ceremony took place at the Beacon Hotel. We had the honor of having Kevin Keaney, Chief of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Pesticide Worker Safety Program, address the members.  In addition, David Strauss, Executive Director of AFOP, and Levy Schroeder, Farmworker Health & Safety Programs Director, gave End of Service messages to the participants.  Program Officer of AmeriCorps Amy Hetrick also shared remarks with the members.

2011 SAFE AmeriCorps graduates

Three of our SAFE AmeriCorps members also shared their testimonies with the audience at the ceremony. Dina Rodriguez from Telamon, Maryland, spoke about the difficulties farmworkers face day to day. A second year member, Araceli S. Ochoa from  Proteus, California, told the audience how this program had helped her grow on a professional and personal level, teaching her confidence and leadership skills.  Marta Beltran from Campesinos Sin Froteras in Arizona also talked about the great experiences she has had working with farmworkers and shared some of their powerful stories.

At the graduation, we were honored to have Cleo Rodriguez, Executive Director of National Migrant & Seasonal Head Start Association, as well as AFOP’s Children in the Fields Campaign Director Norma Flores and Vashti Kelly, Children in the Fields Campaign Manager, present.

The SAFE AmeriCorps members received their diplomas at the end of the ceremony, which were presented by Levy Schroeder and Jessica Werder, the former Manager of the SAFE AmeriCorps Program. Although all of the members had a significant impact on the farmworker community through their trainings and services, a few members received special recognition for their outstanding service. Individuals were recognized for most Worker Protection Standard (WPS) trainings conducted, two AmeriCorps spirit awards, most farmworkers impacted through trainings and services, and most overall outstanding AmeriCorps member in our next program year 2012, we hope to accomplish equally impressive goals. If you are interested or know someone who may be interested in having such a wonderful experience, please contact Melanie Forti at forti@afop.org.

Unfortunately, this unruly way of funding federal programs has been the rule rather than the exception over the past decade. In fact, last year Congress gave up in April and passed a year-long CR instead of a federal budget for most programs. One of the problems this year is that no committee of the House of Representatives passed an appropriations bill; instead, Representative Hal Rogers, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, issued a draft of a bill he thought would work well. It was never debated or voted upon. The Senate Appropriations Committee did, by contrast, pass a bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education—agencies that fund the overwhelming majority of farmworker services programs, including the National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP).

The House draft contains some serious problems for the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) network, especially the adult and dislocated worker accounts, as well as for the farmworker job training program AFOP members operate. The House wants to shift DOL from the program year (July 1-June 30) to the federal fiscal year (October 1-September 30). This shift contravenes a section of the WIA mandating that nearly all WIA programs be funded on the Program Year.

Most of the workforce development advocacy groups believe the draft bill proposed by Chairman Rogers would dramatically reduce funding for the adult and dislocated worker program, since they would end the advance funding mechanism that those programs have relied upon for over ten years. Now, the National Farmworker Jobs Program is not directly affected by this move, since we do not get advance funding. However, any strong threat to the basic funding of the adult and dislocated worker programs could have a negative impact on the NFJP. Many of AFOP members’ staffs are co-located in rural One-Stop Career Centers, whose very existence would be threatened by a sharp decline in funding.

The draft bill would also create other unintended consequences. It would subject every DOL program to the problems created by the inability of Congress to pass a budget each year, resulting in an increasingly and disturbingly common array of CRs. Imagine running a training program when you have to re-contract with providers and with customers every few weeks because Congress can’t pass a year-long appropriations bill. Moreover, the WIA settled on the Program Year to try to line up the training programs more closely with the calendars of community colleges and other educational institutions that are crucial to the kinds of training programs that unemployed workers need to have.

While switching from the program to the fiscal year seems like a benign action, it is fraught with danger during this time of almost constant cutbacks to federal human services programs. The House Draft stops funding of the NFJP at December 31, 2012. The spending bill for 2013 will have to fund the next nine months of funding, which (assuming it does so) then reduces the baseline for 2014 and beyond. While the appropriate action would be for the next Congress to recognize this anomaly and fully fund the NFJP and other workforce programs similarly scheduled, it is just as likely that they will choose to simply fund at the nine month level at a time when there is growing pressure to reduce spending. This is a risk that should not be taken, especially since there does not appear to be a strong public policy reason for changing the WIA funding year.

Our holiday hope is that whatever compromise the House and Senate reach retains, at least for FY 2012, the forward funding and program year components of the WIA system. Perhaps the changes the House seeks to make would be better planned for a time when funds aren’t so tight, when unemployment is back to pre-recession levels, and when Congress sends an appropriations bill for Labor, HHS and Education to the President before September 30.

By Melanie Forti, Health & Safety Programs Program Coordinator, AFOP

AFOP and the Corporation for National and Community Service are happy to announce a wonderful opportunity for 28 individuals to become SAFE (Serving America’s Farmworkers Everywhere) AmeriCorps members for the 2012 volunteer year. These members will serve migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the following states: Arizona (Campesinos Sin Fronteras), California (Central Valley Opportunity Center and Proteus, Inc.), Idaho (Community Council of Idaho, Inc.), Maine (Eastern Maine Development Corporation), Maryland (Telamon Corporation), New Mexico (Ben Archer Health Center and HELP New Mexico, Inc.), and Virginia (Telamon Corporation).

AFOP’s SAFE AmeriCorps members pride themselves on providing lifesaving information about pesticide safety and heat stress prevention, as well as assisting farmworkers and their families in other creative and important ways. Since the beginning of the program, SAFE AmeriCorps members have impacted over 550,000 farmworkers through pesticide safety, heat stress prevention, and other health-related trainings. They have also provided services and support to farmworkers in the form of transportation help; translation and medical services; food, clothing, and shelter assistance; and a variety of referrals. They have organized community events, featuring medical services, raffles, educational skits about pesticide safety, and many other activities for adults and children.

AFOP's 2011 SAFE AmeriCorps Members

Being a SAFE AmeriCorps member has many perks. Through continuing education opportunities, practice in public speaking, and improving organization skills, SAFE AmeriCorps members strengthen their self-esteem; learn how to be a team player; and gain the skills needed for successful employment after volunteer service. Full-time members (or individuals making a commitment of 1,700 hours of service) receive a child care subsidy and a $5,500 educational scholarship each year, which can be applied to existing student loans or used toward future education. Members working less than full-time will also receive scholarships for amounts relative to their term of service. All members will also receive a living allowance and health insurance.

Do you want to make a difference by providing daily support through food drives, clothing drives, and other services? Are you interested in growing your experience as a professional? If so, we look forward to welcoming you to our SAFE AmeriCorps Team in the future and helping you blossom as an individual. Together, we can get things done for America’s farmworkers.

For additional information on eligibility requirements and to learn how to enroll, please contact Melanie Forti via email at forti@afop.org.

Farmworkers are among the lowest paid workers in America, with the average family of four earning just $17, 500 per year, far below the national poverty line. The members of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) give those farmworkers hope that life can be better through the training programs they operate through the National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP). The NFJP is funded via the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) with competitive grants from the Department of Labor. With those funds, AFOP members provide the farmworkers with the opportunity to attain self and family-sustaining employment, usually with great benefits and access to a career ladder—things rarely provided in farm work.

In September, the House Appropriations Chairman, Hal Rogers, issued a draft 2012 appropriations bill that would, if enacted, have drastic effects on the employment and job training services funded through the Workforce Investment Act, including the NFJP. The House proposal would eliminate all advanced funding the Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth programs receive each year. It would also change the annual operating year from the program year (July 1-June 30) to the fiscal year (October 1-September 30). This may not seem like a big deal, after all, it’s just a date change, right?  However, this change is not benign. The Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce estimates these changes would cut as much as $2.2 billion from the WIA system in 2012 alone, causing hundreds of One Stop Career Centers to close. This kind of a cut, especially in already tight economic times, would virtually eliminate the job training services for hundreds of thousands of people searching for a job in this period of record unemployment.

Currently, staff members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are negotiating their different approaches to the Federal Fiscal Year budget for 2012. The fiscal year actually began October 1, 2011, so they are already nearly two months behind schedule. Unfortunately, that has become the norm in Washington, D.C. over the past decade. The government operates on continuing resolutions until the President signs an appropriations bill that both chambers of Congress have approved. At present, we are operating on the second such resolution, which is due to expire December 16.

AFOP members outreach to the farmworker community and assess the skills and training needs of eligible workers. Then they design an appropriate training program, one that will result in a job that can both lift them out of poverty and include benefits and a career ladder. In the case of the National Farmworker Jobs Program, the proposed transition from a program year to a fiscal year would cause significant disruption in a few ways.

First, for many AFOP agencies, the community colleges and other academic institutions provide much of the academic and technical portion of the training for the farmworker customers. These institutions operate on the school year, which begins in August or early September. Without having the actual budget until after October 1, it would be very difficult to plan a proper set of training programs for the farmworkers we serve. For example, just as it wouldn’t make sense to agree to sell a house to someone before he or she received approval for a loan, it wouldn’t make sense for these institutions to plan with the job training providers before they have a budget approved—throwing the entire planning process into chaos that is necessary for effective training and partnerships that result in clients successfully obtaining jobs.

Secondly, if Congress continues to fail to pass appropriations bills by September 30, AFOP members operating the NFJP face an even more daunting task: executing month-to-month training contracts with institutions, with no guarantee the courses will be finished. Most training sessions are at least four months long and they are often six months in length. In 2011, for example, the final legislation did not reach the President’s desk until April! As bad as that was, WIA programs still had over two months before the program year began, permitting at least some of the planning that was envisioned when the WIA was passed.

The final worry about the House plan: with the exception of two programs, the draft bill proposed by House Appropriations Chairman Rogers only funds part of the transition from program year to fiscal year. The NFJP was not one of those two programs. Thus, the NFJP grants would only be funded through December 31, 2012. The period January 1 through September 30, 2013, would have to be funded in the 2013 appropriations bill—a worrisome prospect as some Members of Congress look to cut any and all services to middle and low-income individuals and their families.

In conclusion, just as the date for our Thanksgiving dinner is important (it is even enshrined in federal law), so is the time frame for operating and funding programs that help America’s farmworkers escape the grinding poverty they experience in the fields. Our holiday hope is that Congress will do the right thing by properly scheduling and fully funding these important workforce development programs. At a time of such tremendous unemployment, we need more investment in America’s low-wage workforce, not less.

Farmworker youth council Poder Juvenil Campesino (Rural Youth Power) is organizing and leading a community forum on problems they face in the community and proposing collaborative solutions with the public at an event titled YouthSpeak 2011 on November 30, in Kinston, North Carolina. The youth council has been preparing for the event following their inspirational involvement in a teen Town Hall meeting that occurred this past spring.  This event was designed to allow the young farmworkers to express their opinions, concerns, and experiences with members of the community, and share their perspectives on how to bring about positive change within the community.

YouthSpeak 2011 is a youth-led forum organized by a group of tomorrow’s leaders. Youth will be leading discussions about the lifestyles and challenges facing the most important demographic in our nation, delivered by those who know best: our children. The audience will hear the inside realities of the struggles rural youth face in and out of school and they will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion.

The event consists of three panel discussions led by youth on  access to education, child labor in farm work, and issues surrounding at-risk youth. Youth will voice their opinions, concerns, and personal experiences with members of the community and offer solutions to the problems they are experiencing. The youth also seek support and guidance from the public in order to develop a more active role for themselves within the community to overcome such challenges.

In addition, there will be an exhibition of photographs by youth as well as video screenings featuring youth council members. YouthSpeak attendance is “a must” for community leaders, health care providers, educators, and others with an interest in serving rural communities.

YouthSpeak 2011 will take place on November 30, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Lenoir Community College in the Waller Building at the Culinary Arts Center, located at 231 Hwy 58, South in Kinston, NC.

Refreshments will be served.  If you plan to attend, RSVP by November 23. Space is limited!

In honor of Rural Health Day we want to recognize that millions of farmworkers live every day without health insurance and/or access to even the most basic health care.

Imagine traveling hundreds of miles from your home every season. With only a little money in your pockets, promises of work on a farm further north shift through your thoughts. You arrive to a whole new climate where snow smothers the hills in the winter. No one walking down the road looks like you; you stick out like a sore thumb. Eventually, you find work in lettuce fields, in poultry plants, or in the apple orchards. Suddenly, you get sick, need a prescription for medication, or worse, you have an accident. How will you pay for it? Even more present in your mind, how will you navigate the health care system, which literally and figuratively speaks a language you do not understand?

Only 20% of farmworkers in the United States used any health care services between 1998 and 2000, according to Kaiser’s report on farmworker health care access. Facing the realities of isolation, constant migration, and alienation described above, it is no wonder the numbers are so low. Earning just $10,000 to $12,000 per year on average, migrant and seasonal farmworkers have a difficult time affording health care. Farmworkers are insured at a much lower rate than even their working-class counterparts in other industries with a whopping 85% of farmworkers uninsured, as compared to 37% of the total low-income adult population. While Kaiser’s report was published in 2005, it is doubtful much has changed, since little else has improved for those who harvest out food, including wages and living and working conditions.

Children, in particular, need a variety of health-related resources as they grow and develop into young adults. Disappointingly, children in farmworker families are at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to health coverage than even their parents or other low-income children. To put it into perspective, when it comes to health coverage, 90% of farmworker children are uninsured in a country where 78% of all low-income children have health insurance coverage.

During 2011, certain states opted to take health insurance matters into their own hands. Florida’s leadership moved to privatize all aspects of its Medicaid programs. Further north, Vermont passed a bill initiating the reform process for a single-payer, public health insurance system for everyone in the state, including farmworkers. Green Mountain Care, as it was named, passed the House in March and the Senate in the spring; on May 26, Governor Pete Shumlin signed signed it into law. In Vermont, proponents of health care coverage for people working in that state ran their campaign under the slogan, “Health care is a human right.”

Shouldn’t farmworkers who toil in the fields have assurance that they will not be denied necessary medical attention, whether in the case of an accident or long-term health needs? When 90% of farmworker children and 85% of their parents are not covered by health insurance, how can they overcome the many other barriers to health care access they are confronted with?