Lawsuit
accuses Cal-OSHA of overlooking heat illness threats to farmworkers
[Bakersfield Californian]
A
lawsuit filed on behalf of farmworkers Thursday accuses Cal-OSHA of
systematically failing to enforce the state's heat illness protection rules.
Among the suit's allegations are claims that the agency has not conducted
proper on-site inspections after complaints were filed, that its investigations
have been slow or incomplete and that it failed to penalize violators or follow
up to make sure dangerous conditions were abated. "Farm workers in
California work in the extreme heat and tough conditions to feed our nation.
But farm workers should never have to risk death due to heat illness,"
United Farm Workers of America President Arturo Rodriguez said in a news
release. The agency responded with a statement that protecting farmworkers from
heat illness is one of its major priorities. It noted that California's outdoor
heat standards are the nation's most stringent, and that the lawsuit
"risks draining resources away from these critical enforcement
actions."
Ag
secretary says U.S. needs to spend more to promote record-high farm exports
[McClatchy Tribune News]
Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack said Thursday that U.S. farm exports are on pace to set a
record high in 2013 but that sales will suffer if Congress does not resurrect a
$200 million-a-year foreign marketing program that expired Oct. 1. “We now are
no longer in the business of being able to promote trade,” Vilsack in an
interview. At issue is the contentious “market-access program,” which helps
private small- and medium-sized businesses make forays into foreign markets….
Vilsack said farm exports have risen in response to new markets that opened for
the United States after Congress passed new free-trade agreements last year
with Colombia, South Korea and Panama. And he said the USDA has made “a more
concerted, more focused effort” to increase foreign trade after President
Barack Obama challenged his Cabinet secretaries to double U.S. exports during
the five-year period from 2009 to 2014. But when members of Congress declined to
renew the farm bill before their pre-election break last month, that funding
came to an end. As a result, Vilsack said, U.S. farmers, ranchers and others
who rely on exports are “in a pickle.”
Mexican
tomato growers offer new trade deal [New York Times]
Hoping
to stave off a brewing trade war, Mexican tomato growers said on Thursday that
they would agree to significant increases in the minimum price at which their
products can enter the United States and to establish a system to bolster
compliance and enforcement. Their offers come as the Commerce Department
considers whether to end a 16-year-old agreement between the United States and
some Mexican growers that American tomato farmers say keeps the price of
Mexican tomatoes so low that they can barely compete….The current agreement
sets a floor price of 21.69 cents a pound for winter tomatoes. Under the new
terms the Mexicans are offering, the minimum price for winter tomatoes would be
25.68 cents to 27.02 cents a pound, depending on the variety of the tomato.
Mexico has threatened to retaliate if the agreement ends, and more than 370 United
States businesses and trade groups have sent letters to the Commerce Department
warning of the costs of a trade war. Producers of things as diverse as potatoes
and pork remember well the price of the last trade war with Mexico over
trucking, when stiff tariffs ate into revenue and profits.
Pet
treat company relocates to Fresno from Midwest [Fresno Bee]
Grumbling
about California's unfriendly business climate driving companies out of state
is a favorite pastime in political and business circles. So when a company
moves from the Midwest into California, specifically the Valley, it's worth
noting. KDR, which makes Plato Pet Treats, set up shop here last month, leaving
the manufacturing plant it outgrew in Indiana. Now, 15 workers each day in
southeast Fresno turn out a truckload of all-natural dog treats ranging from
organic chicken flavor to turkey and sweet potato. Operations manager Aaron
Merrell said people have called him crazy for moving to California, and he's
heard all the reasons companies leave the state….For
food processors, a move to the San Joaquin Valley makes sense, Vranich said.
"Everything they need is right there," he said. The central San
Joaquin Valley is increasingly getting the attention of food processors who are
considering moving or expanding, said Lee Ann Eager, president and CEO of
Fresno County Economic Development Corporation. Three or four are in the final
stages of their decision, she said.
Most
students give more healthful state school menus thumbs up [Los Angeles Times]
For
every three California public school students who think school meals are
yummier than usual, there's only one who thinks they're worse, according to a
new poll released Wednesday. The survey by the California Endowment, the
state's largest healthcare foundation, was the first to tally the attitudes of
California students and parents since new national nutrition standards took
effect in July….The results of the telephone and Internet survey show that
Californians appreciate the health-conscious shift, said Judi Larsen, a program
manager at the California Endowment. "I have to be honest, we went in
knowing the results could go either way," Larsen said. "We're
definitely pleased."
Forgotten
hero of labor fight; his son’s lonely quest [New York Times]
It
is the obscurity of his father’s grave, not far from the once-tumultuous grape
fields where farmworker history was made, that most troubles Johnny Itliong, a
chef from Los Angeles. “Larry deserves better,” Mr. Itliong said of his father,
Larry Itliong, the fiercely determined, polyglot Filipino labor leader whose
pivotal role in the farm labor movement continues to reside in history’s
shadows….Mr. Itliong was a baby in 1965, the year his father and 1,000 field
laborers — the first wave of Filipinos to the United States, known as manongs —
began the grape strike that set the stage for the boycott that would lead Cesar
Chavez and thousands of farmworker families to create the nation’s pioneering
agricultural labor union, the United Farm Workers. Last week, in what was
widely seen as a nod to Latino voters, President Obama traveled to Nuestra
Señora de La Paz in Keene, the United Farmworkers headquarters and redoubt established
by Chavez in 1971. There he designated the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument,
the country’s first monument honoring a modern-day Latino. Chavez is buried at
La Paz, surrounded by a memorial rose garden; the site, donated by the Cesar
Chavez Foundation and operated by the Park Service, includes a visitors center
and the home where Mr. Chavez’s widow, Helen, still lives. But to a new
generation of Filipino scholars and other historians, there is a missing
element from the predominantly Latino narrative. “In popular culture, it’s seen
as a Chicano movement, not as the multiethnic alliance that it actually was,”
said Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, an associate professor of history at San Francisco
State University.
Ag
Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for
information purposes, by the CFBF Communications/News Division, 916-561-5550; news@cfbf.com.
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