farmworker health

Study: Poor work safety climates put youth farmworkers at risk of injury, illness

kkrisberg — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 16:36:57 +0000

Study: Poor work safety climates put youth farmworkers at risk of injury, illness

Even though farmworkers face serious hazards on the job and work in one of the most dangerous industries in the country, most young farmworkers in a recent study rated their work safety climate as “poor.” In fact, more than a third of those surveyed said their managers were only interested in getting the job done as quickly as possible.

Recently published in the American Journal of Public Health, the study was designed to capture perceptions of work safety climates on North Carolina farms that employ children and teens and the association with occupational safety and injuries. In partnering with organizations that provide health, social and educational services to farmworkers and their families, the study researchers were eventually able to survey 87 youth farmworkers between ages 10 and 17, the great majority of whom were Hispanic. (This may come as a surprise for some readers, but child labor is not completely illegal in the U.S. The 1938 federal law that outlawed most forms of child labor included an exemption for the agricultural sector, which can still employ children. Some estimates put U.S. youth farmworker numbers as high as 500,000.) The study found that while the majority of youth workers interviewed said that work safety practices were very important to management, 38 percent said supervisors were only interested in “doing the job quickly and cheaply.”

The study noted that youth farmworkers are particularly vulnerable to workplace dangers and face a variety of hazards on the job, such as sharp tools, heat exposure, pesticides, dangerous machinery and poisonous plants. Study authors Gregory Kearney, Guadalupe Rodriguez, Sara Quandt, Justin Arcury and Thomas Arcury write:

Undoubtedly, agriculture is an important industry that requires a significant labor force to maintain its sustainability. However, decisions to improve policies to protect and ensure the safety of youths working in one of the most hazardous industries is justified. The concept of work safety climate can play an important role in developing workplace interventions to reduce the incidence and severity of injuries and improving the safety of workers.

In gathering responses on work safety climate, which describes workers’ perceptions of how employers value workplace safety, about 70 percent agreed that “work safety practices were very important to management.” Also, about 40 percent agreed that they “were made aware of dangerous work practices or conditions,” about a quarter said they were regularly praised for safe work practices and about 40 percent received safety instructions when hired. However, only about 8 percent of study participants said they attended regular safety meetings and only about 32 percent said proper safety equipment was always available. About 55 percent responded that taking risks was not a part of their jobs.

When it came to occupational injuries, 23 percent of the interviewed youth said the possibility of experiencing a work-related injury was “very likely” in the following year. While nearly 21 percent said their supervisors did as much as possible to ensure safety, more than 41 percent said supervisors could do more to ensure a safe working environment. In the 12 months previous to being interviewed, 54 percent of the youth farmworkers experienced musculoskeletal pain and nearly 61 percent experienced some type of trauma, the most common being a cut, followed by burn and eye injury. More than 72 percent of those interviewed reported a skin injury, such as sunburn.

The researchers found that the types of personal protective equipment most commonly used were hats, followed by gloves, rain suits, bandanas and plastic trash bags. Just 3.5 percent reported wearing a protective suit. In measuring potential pesticide exposure risks, the study found that 54 percent of the youth worked in wet shoes, nearly 52 percent worked in wet clothes and more than 41 percent wore short-sleeved shirts. Also, 15 percent wore work clothes that hadn’t been washed and more than 42 percent did not wash their hands while at work (hand-washing can reduce pesticide exposure risk). They study authors noted that “when handled wet, dermal absorption of pesticides and nicotine can occur, resulting in illness such as green tobacco sickness and cognitive and behavioral dysfunction.”

Overall, the study found an association between perceptions about work safety climate and the practice of safe behaviors while on the job.

The study authors write: “Additional research on how work safety climate has an impact on occupational behavior and health among youth agricultural workers is an area that is warranted and needs increased attention.”

To request a full copy of the youth farmworker study, visit the American Journal of Public Health.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Fri, 06/19/2015 - 12:36

The statement that 55% responded that taking risks was not a part of the job, is alarming because it means 45% responded taking risks IS a part of the job. This is very disturbing and more emphasis should be placed on this issue.

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:09:43 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

Serious health problems are driving workers at a car part manufacturer in Alabama to call for a union. In an in-depth article for NBC News, reporter Seth Freed Wessler investigated occupational exposures at the Selma-based Renosol Seating plant, where workers make foam cushions for Hyundai car seats and headrests. According to the story, at least a dozen current and former employees report sinus infections, chronic coughs, bronchitis, shortness of breath and asthma since working at the factory. The story begins with worker Denise Barnett:

Denise Barnett was thankful seven years ago when she started a job at the Renosol Seating plant, one of 90 hourly workers making foam cushions for Hyundai car seats and headrests.

“Here in Selma, a job is hard to find,” said Barnett, 37. In Dallas County, where Selma is the county seat, the unemployment rate is about 12 percent, and 60 percent of children live below the poverty line.

Before landing this position, Barnett, who like most Renosol workers is African American, worked at a gas station for minimum wage. For Selma residents like her, a job at Renosol—$11 an hour plus healthcare—is like gold.

But in early 2013, Barnett developed a nagging cough that kept her up at night. One evening last July, Barnett came home after picking up her two young boys from her sister’s house and had a serious coughing attack. “I made the kids run back into the car and rushed to the hospital,” she said. When Barnett arrived in urgent care, she said, she could barely breathe and spent two nights in the hospital.

“They say I have asthma,” said Barnett, who said she’d never been a smoker and now uses two inhalers and a nasal spray. “I never had that before.”

Wessler reports that Barnett and other sick workers have a theory about what’s causing the respiratory complications — a chemical called toluene diisocyanate, or TDI, which is used to make the car seat foam and is a documented cause of work-induced asthma. The story notes that companies are largely left on their own to regulate exposure to TDI. OSHA head David Michaels told Wessler that “OSHA’s workplace exposure limits for many chemicals are out of date and not adequately protective.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the plant’s parent company, Lear Corporation, claims the Selma plant is a safe environment for employees. So in conjunction with occupational medicine researchers at Yale University, NBC News coordinated independent testing of workers’ TDI exposure. Of the six workers whose blood had been tested at the time the article was published, four showed exposure to TDI and one showed a low level of exposure. Wessler quoted one of the researchers:

“This is a high frequency of exposure, and it’s cause for concern,” said Adam Wiznewski, PhD, senior research scientist at Yale. He said that the workers may not be representative of the rest of the Renosol's 90-person hourly workforce, but that exposure in even four workers indicates a problem. “The company definitely needs to be looking at its industrial hygiene, and they probably need to look into personal protective equipment for workers, and medical surveillance of health issues.”

To read the full article, which includes more worker stories as well as a history of longtime health and safety complaints from Renosol workers, click here.

In other news:

ProPublica: In collaboration with Univision, reporter Michael Grabell wrote about the death of Janio Salinas, a 50-year-old temp worker who lost his life after being buried alive in a mountain of sugar at a sugar plant in Pennsylvania. Grabell reports that federal investigators recently found that just two weeks prior to the incident, a safety device that would have saved Salinas’ life was removed because a manager believed it was slowing down production. The company was fined just $18,000 for Salinas' death. In a related article, Grabell reported that Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., has written OSHA’s director about the growing number of workplace injuries and fatalities involving temporary workers. The articles are part of ProPublica’s “Temp Land: Working in the New Economy” series.

Food Safety News: Reporter Cookson Beecher writes about the connection between poor housing conditions among farmworkers and food safety. He started the article with a housing example that’s sadly not surprising to advocates in the field: A farmworker and her kids living in a decommissioned walk-in freezer. In interviewing Bobbi Ryder, CEO and president of the National Center for Farmworker Health, about the type of housing farmworkers need to stay healthy and maintain food safety on the job, the answer was simple: “They need the same things that you and I need. Clean running water for drinking and bathing, access to washers and driers so when they come out of the field after a hard day’s work they can wash their clothes, enough space so communicable diseases aren’t a problem.”

Slate: Need a laugh and a remarkably good breakdown of income inequality in America? Check out this clip from John Oliver’s show, “Last Week Tonight.” It is so worth 15 minutes of your time.

Los Angeles Times: Activists in Los Angeles are taking the first steps toward raising the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. Emily Alpert Reyes writes that the Los Angeles Workers Assembly has submitted a proposed ballot initiative to city officials. If voters approve the initiative, the wage hike would go into effect immediately for larger businesses.

Mother Jones: Congratulations ladies! Workplace discrimination is officially over! Just ask Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who recently said: "We've come a long way in pay equity and there are a ton of women CEOs now running major companies.” Writer Patrick Caldwell noted that McConnell has repeatedly opposed federal measures to address the gender pay gap.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Tue, 07/15/2014 - 11:09

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 06 May 2014 16:06:55 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program has garnered praise from the White House to the United Nations for its innovative strategies to improve working conditions among farmworkers in Florida. The program, which began in 2010, works by getting big buyers to agree to only purchase tomatoes from farms that adhere to worker protection rules and ensure that workers are educated on their rights and responsibilities. Businesses that have signed on include Taco Bell, Chipotle and, recently, Wal-Mart, which according to a New York Times article chronicling progress on Florida farms, sells 20 percent of the nation’s fresh tomatoes. In reporting on the work behind the success as well as challenges ahead, the New York Times’ Steven Greenhouse wrote:

So far, the agreements between retailers and growers are limited to Florida’s tomato fields, which in itself is no small feat considering that the state produces 90 percent of the country’s winter tomatoes.

But gaining the heft and reach of Walmart — which sells 20 percent of the nation’s fresh tomatoes year-round — may prove far more influential. To the applause of farmworkers’ advocates, the retailer has agreed to extend the program’s standards and monitoring to its tomato suppliers in Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia and elsewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. Walmart officials say they also hope to apply the standards to apple orchards in Michigan and Washington and strawberry fields in many states.

…But progress is far from complete. Immokalee, 30 miles inland from several wealthy gulf resorts, is a town of taco joints and backyard chicken coops where many farmworkers still live in rotting shacks or dilapidated, rat-infested trailers. A series of prosecutions has highlighted modern-day slavery in the area — one 2008 case involved traffickers convicted of beating workers, stealing their wages and locking them in trucks.

“When I first visited Immokalee, I heard appalling stories of abuse and modern slavery,” said Susan L. Marquis, dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, a public policy institution in Santa Monica, Calif. “But now the tomato fields in Immokalee are probably the best working environment in American agriculture. In the past three years, they’ve gone from being the worst to the best.”

In other news:

The Charleston Gazette: In the wake of January’s Elk River chemical spill in West Virginia, federal officials are developing an “inhalation screening level” for MCHM, a coal cleaning chemical that spilled by the thousands of gallons into the river, contaminating drinking water for residents in nine counties. According to the article, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is developing a "'health protective inhalation screening level’ that may be used, along with information on monitored air concentrations of MCHM, during the site cleanup process ‘to advise the public when exposure to MCHM is not anticipated to be harmful.’” However, state officials say EPA’s work may not be done in time to use during the site cleanup or when dismantling the tanks that contained MCHM. (The Gazette also covered a new federal rule to cut occupational coal dust exposure, which Celeste Monforton wrote about here as well.)

San Antonio Express-News: A decades-old refinery in San Antonio, Texas, is back in the news after an official with the San Antonio River Authority said the refinery’s latest owners aren’t living up to safety promises, with two spills in the span of five weeks. The refinery has a history of fires, accidents and pollution — for example in 2010, “a tanker truck explosion and a series of other blasts at the plant left a driver badly burned and sent thick black smoke skyward. It took firefighters nearly six hours to contain the fire.”

Government Accountability Project Blog: The project’s legal director, Tom Devine, testified before Congress in honor of Workers Memorial Day on whether private-sector whistleblower protections are strong enough to support safe workplaces. In his testimony, Devine noted that a founding pillar of occupational health and safety are laws that protect those who speak up about violations. He said that while whistleblower protections contained in the Occupational Safety and Health Act are the nation’s oldest and most used whistleblower protections, they’re also the country’s weakest whistleblower protections. Click here to watch the Senate subcommittee hearing.

Shreveport Times: An article about worker safety in New York dairies starts out with the story of Francisco Ortiz, who was killed after being caught in a machine that had reportedly been failing for some time. The local sheriff’s office deemed it an “accident,” though surely occupational health and safety advocates would say otherwise. Ortiz’s death was among many that helped jumpstart a worker center-led campaign to improve safety on diary farms. Campaign organizers noted that even though OSHA is planning a series of unannounced inspections this summer, rules that limit OSHA authority to farms with 11 or more nonfamily employees means that many workplaces will continue to fly under the radar.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Tue, 05/06/2014 - 12:06

New study lifts the lid on unhealthy kitchen conditions in migrant farmworker housing

lborkowski — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:21:15 +0000

New study lifts the lid on unhealthy kitchen conditions in migrant farmworker housing

by Kim Krisberg

For many migrant farmworkers, the health risks don't stop at the end of the workday. After long, arduous hours in the field, where workers face risks ranging from tractor accidents and musculoskeletal injuries to pesticide exposure and heat stroke, many will return to a home that also poses dangers to their well-being. And quite ironically for a group of workers that harvests our nation's food, one of those housing risks is poor cooking and eating facilities.

A group of researchers and advocates recently decided to take a closer look at such facilities among migrant farmworker communities in North Carolina, home to an estimated 150,000 farmworkers during peak season and one of the largest such worker populations in the country. While a number of previous studies have uncovered the substandard housing conditions migrant farmworkers often experience, this was the first study to zero in on kitchen and eating facilities. The study, which was published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), found that the most common violations were improper refrigeration temperature, cockroach infestation and drinking water contamination.

"For migrant farmworkers, this is an occupational hazard because their housing is part of their jobs," said Sara A. Quandt, a co-author of the study and a professor in the Wake Forest University Division of Public Health Sciences' Department of Epidemiology & Prevention. "About two-thirds are guest workers and provision of housing is part of the terms of employment, so they don't have a lot of choice in where they live. ...They arrive, they go to work, they work very long days and very long weeks, and their employers are responsible for the provision and maintenance of their housing."

To conduct the study, Quandt and her colleagues studied more than 180 migrant farmworker camps in 16 eastern North Carolina counties. They inspected the cooking and eating facilities using standards from the North Carolina Department of Labor (the agency charged with inspecting migrant farmworker housing) and also took drinking water samples. The housing types ranged from barracks to old houses and trailers; kitchen facilities also varied, from those built to look like a commercial kitchen to the type of kitchen you'd find in a small apartment. Study authors Quandt, Phillip Summers, Werner Bischoff, Haiying Chen, Melinda Wiggins, Chaya Spears and Thomas Arcury write:

Food contamination during storage or preparation, lack of appropriate kitchen facilities, and undercooking can increase the risk of food-borne illnesses. In the long term, absence of safe food storage or cooking facilities can constrain the type of foods consumed and lead to elevated chronic disease risk. For example, the inability to safely store fresh fruits and vegetables can lead to low consumption, a known risk factor for diabetes and cancer.

Researchers found eight of the 15 standards assessed were violated in about 10 percent of farmworker camps. Coliform bacteria was detected in water samples from nearly 35 percent of kitchens; in more than 65 percent of inspections, at least one fridge had a temperature greater than the safe level of 45 degrees; and about 21 percent of kitchens were rated as unsanitary for food preparation.

Cockroach infestation was found in nearly 46 percent of kitchens inspected and rodent inspection in nearly 29 percent. More than 25 percent of kitchens had improper or damaged flooring and about 12 percent had structural issues, both of which up the risk for animal and insect infestation. Farmworker camps with H-2A visa holders, which permits legal entry in the country for seasonal agricultural work, were home to significantly fewer violations than camps with undocumented workers.

Having previously worked with migrant farmworkers and spent time in their homes, Quandt told me she wasn't particularly surprised by the findings. However, she said she was surprised by the high number of refrigerators operating at above-safe temperatures — temperatures that make it easier for bacteria to quickly multiply. She said that some of the fridges were simply in disrepair, while in some housing, overcrowding meant the fridge was opened so often it was hard to maintain safe temperatures.

"But in many cases, they're just old fridges and in dwellings that are extremely hot in the summer, so it's very difficult for them to cool adequately," Quandt said.

Quandt said the danger of food- and water-borne illness is far greater than issues of malnutrition, though migrant farmworkers often report food insecurity problems tied to low wages as well. She noted that it's difficult to track the health outcomes that could stem from poor kitchen facilities, especially as many related diseases are likely under-reported among farmworkers and there are other reasons such workers would experience gastrointestinal distress, such as extreme heat or overexposure to nicotine from tobacco leaf harvesting.

"These are folks who are working with food crops, so if in fact they do have (food- and water-borne) illnesses those may well be passed on to consumers and that's something we really haven't looked at in this country," Quandt told me. "Growers aren't necessarily getting rich, but some of the only elasticity they really have is labor, so you scrimp on what you pay people and where they live. That is the human cost of the food that we eat in this country."

Insufficient enforcement

Quandt said one message she and her colleagues want to get across with the study is that the current inspection system in North Carolina isn't adequate — "it's not uncovering problems that are threats to health and safety." She said not only is the inspection system underfunded, but inspections only take place before housing is occupied, unless a specific complaint is lodged after occupancy. Melinda Wiggins, executive director of Student Action with Farmworkers and a co-author of the AJPH study, said inspectors would uncover many of the violations the researchers did if they returned after housing was occupied. For example, inspectors don't examine kitchen facilities in the midst of overcrowded conditions or in the middle of the growing season when housing looks very different.

Wiggins also told me the state often spends its limited resources inspecting the same migrant farmworker housing over and over again, instead of directing its efforts at some of the most egregious violators, which are often farms employing workers without H-2A visas. She said it's this type of housing that inspectors rarely see — "we want (the state) to think about how to be more creative with its limited resources to really focus on the worst violators," she said. Wiggins and fellow advocates have previously tried to push more comprehensive farmworker housing standards through the state's General Assembly, but were unsuccessful. However, they're going to try again this spring. The AJPH study findings have already been translated into a user-friendly policy brief that will be used to educate legislators.

"Poor housing in general is a huge issue that impacts farmworkers," Wiggins said. "Because otherwise, we're talking about a fairly healthy population. But when they're put in the situation of hazardous work and hazardous housing, they become one of the most unhealthy populations around."

Quandt noted that not all the farmworker housing they see is bad — "we saw some really exemplary places and these are growers who have really made an effort." Still, she said inspection policies should change to truly protect farmworkers' health.

"Many people will say, 'Well, these places are still better than where they live in Mexico,' but farmworkers just scoff at that," she said. "They may be poor, but they don't live in conditions like this."

To read the AJPH study, click here. To read about how it is possible to create healthy living conditions for migrant farmworkers, check out this account of a brand new healthy and green farmworker community in Florida.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for the last decade.

lborkowski Fri, 02/22/2013 - 08:21