A group of immigrant workers and community members rallied on Thursday at Taylor Farms in California, the largest producer of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables, asking for safer work conditions nearly one month after managers failed to evacuate the plant after a chemical spill.
Holding signs reading “Taylor Farms: Respect Workers’ Safety” and “Danger: Taylor Farms” the group called for safer conditions, like an evacuation plan when chlorine or other noxious fumes are detected and a monitor to detect high chlorine dioxide levels that could pose a health risk. The demand provisions also include humanely treating exposed workers with full pay for any loss of work due to the chemical spill, physical exams paid by the company, and continuing medical attention for workers who need it.
On October 15, workers complained of a “strong smell of chlorine,” but managers told them to put on masks and get back to work. The plant was evacuated only after two dozen workers, including two pregnant women, had symptoms like nosebleeds, vomiting, and fainting and were sent to the hospital. A worker called the Tracy Fire Department, which later determined that the spill occurred from two chemicals, acetic acid (found in vinegar) and chlorine (found in bleach), which combined to create a chlorine gas that “attacks the mucous membranes inside the nose and lungs,” according to the local community newspaper Tracy Press.
One of the [pregnant] women was asked by company management to come back in to turn over their clothes.
“One of the [pregnant] women was asked by company management to come back in to turn over their clothes,” Doug Bloch, the Teamsters Joint Council 7 Political Director, told ThinkProgress. “Everybody that went to the hospital was told by the hospital to not go back to work. The company doctor told everybody to go to work. These are bad chemicals!”
The chemical spill that happened last month is similar to another incident that occurred in 2012, when 20 workers had to be taken to the hospital for eye and breathing irritation after being exposed to industrial cleaning chemicals. CalOSHA issued serious citations after that incident, but efforts to improve worker safety are moving slowly. According to the 2012 CalOSHA report, there are no injury and illness prevention plans in place and inadequate personal protective equipment. These continue to be part of the list of complaints that workers asked for in the rally.
At the Taylor Farms’ Tracy plant, about 900 workers have been trying to organize a union with the Teamsters over the past two years. According to Bloch, the vegetable processor company has attempted to undermine worker efforts to organize, such as threatening to call federal immigration authorities, or threatening to use E-Verify, a federal government tool used to verify the immigration status of employees. The company has also tried to build tension between workers trying to organize and those who didn’t join the union.
“People had their shifts cut or hours cut and they see other people on the production line who didn’t join the union get their wages increased,” Bloch said.
By some estimates, about 78 percent of agricultural workers are foreign-born, many of whom are undocumented. For that population in particular, their exposure to dangerous health or safety risks could be underreported because they’re too often intimidated by their immigration status to complain about their situation. Along a similar vein, an advocate for workers in the agricultural industry note that workers are exposed to pesticides every year and that workers “might not feel comfortable challenging their supervisors or employers about the potential harm.”
Telling immigrant workers to go back to working in a hazardous situation isn’t isolated to Taylor Farms. A survey of New Mexico farm workers found that managers told workers they would lose their jobs if they refused to work in direct contact with pesticides. And in 2013, at least 15 farm workers finally won back their right to work after being fired for fleeing wildfire smoke.