| The Remarkably Unremarkable Death of a Farm Worker |
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| Written by Len Sherman | |
| Friday, 30 May 2008 | |
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Surely one of the most valuable things you can do is challenge your assumptions and ideas now and again, and no issue demands that sort of examination more than the immigration issue. Now calm down: Pausing to think doesn’t mean you have to give up your painfully constructed prejudices and absolutely unshakable convictions. No. Don’t worry. So, with that assurance, pause to think about this from the Sacramento Bee: On Wednesday, nestled in a white satin coffin, the 17-year-old girl became to farm labor advocates more a symbol of what they say are secretive and abusive conditions in some of the state's orchards and vineyards.California occupational safety authorities are investigating the girl's death in Lodi as a heat-related fatality. The United Farm Workers Union is calling her treatment an "egregious" violation of safety regulations put into effect three years ago after three farmworkers and a construction worker died of the heat."Maria's death should have been prevented," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.Maria Vasquez Jiminez and her fiancé, Florentino Bautista, were employed by Merced Farm Labor contracting services, and working in a vineyard east of Stockton, when she collapsed. Under rules enforced by Cal-OSHA, each worker is supposed to be provided one quart of water per shift. Employers are required to provide shaded areas and allow workers to take five-minute breaks as necessary to cool down. Bosses also have to train their supervisors and employees and have a written program ready for inspection if Cal-OSHA officials request one.The state agency was busy investigating the incident, because, as a spokesman said, “these are farm workers, and they might move on.”Employers who are found guilty of willfully violating heat laws can be fined up to $25,000. The teenager had only been on her $8-an-hour job for three days when she dropped. Her day pruning vines had begun at 6 am, with heat topping 95 degrees, with workers permitted only one water break, at 10:30 am, with the water a 10-minute walk away. And those 10 minutes meant lost time working, which meant a “scolding” from the boss. And that boss was apparently the sort of caring guy we all hope to work for:Vasquez Jimenez collapsed at 3:30 p.m., Bautista said, and for at least five minutes, the foreman did nothing but stare at the couple while Bautista cradled her.Bautista said the foreman told him to place the teenager in the back seat of a van, which was hot inside, and put a wet cloth on her.Later, Bautista said, the foreman told a driver to take the pair to a store to buy rubbing alcohol and apply it to see if it would revive Vasquez Jimenez. When that failed, the driver took the couple to a clinic in Lodi, Bautista said, where her body temperature had reached more than 108 degrees."The foreman told me to say that she wasn't working for a contractor, that she got sick while exercising," Bautista said in Spanish. "He said she was underage, and it would cause a lot of problems."The clinic staff rushed Maria to a hospital. She was revived several times before dying two days later without ever regaining consciousness. Oh yes, one more fact: Maria was two months pregnant. The president of the United Farm Workers delivered a eulogy – in Spanish – at the church. "What value does a farm worker's life have?” he said. “Is it less than the life of any other human?"Governor Schwarzenegger also attended the funeral, and declared, "This land gave us a lot of opportunity but gave her death. And we have to make sure this doesn't happen again."Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department announced it had contacted California officials to express concern over the "precarious working conditions for Mexicans employed by this firm." Yes, I recognize it’s more a little hard not to be put off by the UFW president pointedly speaking in Spanish, proving, I suppose, he knows Spanish, and by the Mexican government expressing official concern about what happens on American soil, as opposed to worrying about what goes on in its own country. Both of their statements are obnoxious, to say the least. Still, let’s include one more voice, that of Bautista, Maria’s fiancé, who also spoke at the funeral. He told of how she had come to America to earn money to send her widowed mother. He said that the couple had planned to get married and return to Oaxaca in 3 years. Some issues are all about money or politics or some other thing or notion, and some issues, no matter what people talk about, are really, overwhelmingly about people. Immigration is one such issue, and while the larger political problem can neither be ignored nor forgotten, anyone who forgets that real people, and powerless, poor, desperate people at that, are at the spear point of this, the painful end, just don’t get what this issue is really all about. |
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