LCLAA Demand Full Staffing Of Cal/OSHA To Protect Farmworkers & Essential Workers

LCLAA Sacramento Demands Full Staffing Of CalOSHA: CalOSHA is understaffed, and this emergency stimulus package plan must immediately include hiring of 1,000 inspectors, and 500 educators in the realm of work safety relating to COVID-19, to oversee each class of Essential Workers for a safe and healthy work place.

LABOR COUNCIL FOR LATIN AMERICAN ADVANCEMENT

https://www.facebook.com/lclaasacramento/photos/pcb.3050575948326472/3050575251659875/?type=3&theater

“El Consejo Sindical para el Progreso de los Latino Americanos”

“La Voz Unida” AFL-CIO and CHANGE TO WIN


April 9, 2020

Honorable Governor Newsom of the State of California Dear Governor Newsom,

The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) AFL-CIO, and Change to Win, Sacramento La Voz Unida Chapter is a National Latino labor constituency group of over 1.5 million. The Sacramento Chapter is long standing for over 20 years. We write to you Governor with serious matters regarding the most underpaid and unprotected workers in California and Mexico; farmworkers.

The working people in our nation are faced with deciding which basic human right their families will have to prioritize. With massive layoffs and reduction of hours across sectors, essential workers’ families will be faced with some critical decisions, for example: paying rent, paying mortgages, buying food, paying for electricity, paying for clean water, paying for childcare, paying for healthcare, and paying for Wifi for online schooling, just to mention a few.

California, the fifth largest economy in the world, should be the leading champion on protecting all workers regardless of status. LCLAA stands in solidarity with all workers, and we support all essential workers, such as farmworkers, grocery workers, security officers and janitors that are facing huge layoffs and reduction of hours throughout the state and are amongst the lowest waged workers faced with having to live paycheck to paycheck and work multiple jobs because the living cost is too high. Now with COVID-19 and more workers being displaced or loss of jobs, families affected could result in an increase in homeless population in California. We stand with workers and organized labor on a global level.

Today we want to highlight the most vulnerable of workers: Farmworkers, healthcare workers, supermarket workers, and distribution workers, and everyone right now who is working during the COVID-19 epidemic that are categorized by the federal government as Essential Workers.

We are extremely concerned and encourage you Governor and the Senate and the Assembly, who have the authority by executive order and by emergency special session to make these demands a reality during this Pandemic. It’s a matter of life and death. It has been estimated that more Essential workers will get sick and or die due to Coronavirus, that also puts their immediate family members in danger. Many essential workers are more likely to contract COVID-19 due to working at their jobs site that requires direct contact with the public, need emergency healthcare, and protective supplies to function without contaminating their immediate family members. Essential Workers face new hazards with COVID-19, and its imperative that with the expectancy to work, there should also be the expectancy for health and labor protections of all workers, especially Essential Workers right now.

Here are our demands:

We are the 5th largest economy in the world, and sell agricultural food to the world. There are over 2.4 million farmworkers in the USA, and it’s estimated half are the undocumented, many who were forced to migrate into the USA due to NAFTA, now NAFTA2.0/USMCA. In Trumps recent economic stimulus package, Congress earmarked $9.5 billion for the Department of Agriculture and $14 billion in loans for the agricultural industry, but none of this money is identified and or directed at farmworkers harvesting food for families across the Nation to eat. We are demanding that Farmworkers benefit from a California stimulus package for loss of wages, and from being excluded from Healthcare coverage. Per the federal government’s Essential Critical Infrastructure, the Farmworker/s is an Essential Worker. The loss of farmworkers, and not including farmworkers in the federal Emergency Stimulus package could hurt California’s economy and possibly create food shortages.

We urge you to take action and implement a California “Emergency Stimulus package” to cover ALL California workers that include farmworkers who should also be given Hazard-Pay during this COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to safety supplies like anti-bacterial soap for hand washing, extra bathrooms, safety protective attire-clothing, and safety boots/foot wear. When visiting the grocery market one must ask, how did these vegetable get here? Who packaged them? Who put the label on these boxes, packages, and or tied bundles of produce together? Who is working while being chemically prayed over to bring food to the table? It is farmworkers who work rain or shine and through Pandemics. We must protect farmworkers now!

When workers are taken care of, the consumer is taken care of. Consumers are eating the food that farmworkers are picking, and when farmworker families are healthy and taken care of, the consumer and their families are taken care of too - with clean food and water, healthy workers, our California economy will flourish.

California must also implement measures for possible future pandemics and put aside a budget and surplus of emergency equipment that would save Californians. Preventative measures are imperative for a strong California economy. We must create Universal Healthcare that would carry workers and families today in California. This is an emergency, and we cannot wait 2 years for Healthcare for All. Right now we need everyone covered in California that includes all workers, immigrants, Asylum seekers, everyone, and visitors. Especially that right now President Trump refused to approve the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) that would allow millions of citizens to enroll into affordable healthcare coverage during this COVID-10 Pandemic.

The immigration crisis is deplorable! The passing of NAFTA 2.O along with foreign policies continue the forced migration legacy creating poverty, separation of families, and fuels the immigration private prisons industry. COVID-19 cases are increasing inside these detention centers that function as concentration camps; while on the outside people are getting emergency medical healthcare, while immigrants, native indigenous people, asylum seekers forced to migrate get no proper, or medical care; they get nothing. Reports have indicated that people are not getting soap, personal hygiene toiletries, medication, assistance from medical personal, and being psychologically tortured everyday through freezer rooms, lights on 24 hrs, placed in over populated spaces/rooms with walls and chained link fences, separation of newly born babies and children bussed out into different states, in addition to children and women being lost inside the system and can not be found; its outrageously inhumane. Governor we are demanding that ALL concentration camps, managed by counties, and or private prisons, etc operating in California today are closed immediately !

Governor CalOSHA is understaffed, and this emergency stimulus package plan must immediately include hiring of 1,000 inspectors, and 500 educators in the realm of work safety relating to COVID-19, to oversee each class of Essential Workers for a safe and healthy work place.

CalOSHA is not doing enough about overseeing protections of farmworkers during this pandemic. Currently there are 128 CalOSHA inspectors for the entire state of California. This is not enough CalOSHA inspectors to oversee the entirety of California’s workforce. CalOSHA is NOT proactive enough in providing safety information, training, or outreach to workers. Nor is CalOsha overseeing the health and welfare labor protections for nurses, who all across the US are making public social media pleas for training and medical supplies such as: masks, respirators, and body protective wear. Today many workers are walking off their jobs due to traces of COVID-19 being identified at their jobs sites, without any safety precautions, training, or outreach on how to perform duties without becoming infected by the Coronavirus.

We also demand protections for farmworkers harvesting fruits and vegetables from Mexico. We are a neighboring state to Mexico and must have stronger labor relations. The farmworkers of San Quintin, BC, Mexico, who harvest the Driscoll berries, along with many other farmworkers who harvest other produce also package, transport, and assemble are hired by US corporations through the NAFTA2.0/ USMCA agreement. The Mexican farmworkers are already under paid, and many live without general amenities like running water, electricity and no child care. We must build stronger labor policies that are fair and protect workers tied through the NAFTA 2.0/ USMCA agreement for the best interest of workers and their families in California and Mexico.

We are also very concerned with the percentage of Mexican workers being laid off like GM Mexican workers, agriculture workers and thousands of workers affected by COVID-19 that impact California and US economy. Mexican workers are producing medical equipment for the USA, and our concern is for workers on both sides; USA and Mexico firing of workers that will cause food, medical, car parts, etc shortages. If we do not take emergency action on these demands, these impacts will no doubt affect California’s economy and the Nation with product coming to a stop out of Mexico into California and USA. The solution is to implement a “California Emergency Stimulus Package” that covers everything mentioned above, build stronger labor relations with Mexico, and to enforce a tax on the wealthiest of Californians, corporations, and oil companies.

We thank you for all you have done to put California first, and proud of your fast action to combat COVID-19. Let's go all the way, let's get a “California Emergency Stimulus Package” that further protects farmworkers and people who were left out of the federal governments stimulus package.

Sincerely,

Desirée Bates Rojas

President
Sacramento Labor Council for Latin American Advancement Sacramento Chapter AFL-CIO, and Change To Win

SACRAMENTO CHAPTER OFFICERS

DESIRÉE ROJAS President CSEA SEIU Local 1000

FRANCISCO R. GARCIA

1st Vice President Local 49/Unite Here

& Stationary Engineers Local 39

AL ROJAS

2nd Vice President SEIU Local 1000

FATIMA GARCIA

Secretary SEIU USWW

WALTER GARCIA KAWAMOTO Treasurer Los Rios College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2279

EXECUTIVE BOARD

GABRIEL TORRES

Los Rios College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2279

RODOLFO RODRIGUEZ

UAW Local 2865

P.O. Box 4388 Davis, California 95616 Fed. ID#: 41-2151778