Erika Patricia Deluque Barros said she was working in a tomato field in Yolo County when she started feeling shaky and nauseous. She is an immigrant from Colombia with little experience working in the fields and said she didn't know at the time that the summer heat could make her sick.
“I didn’t know that the sun here could kill,” Deluque Barros said. “I didn’t know what sunstroke was and no one had told me what could happen.”
Two weeks later, she said, she was working in scorching heat and once again began to feel dizzy and nauseous. She said she took a break under a tree but felt weak as soon as she returned to work. It felt too hot to work safely, she said, so she and five others got permission from their supervisor to leave early.
But when the workers returned to the field early the next morning, according to a complaint filed with the state Labor Commissioner's Office, they were given their last paychecks and fired.
“I was shocked, I felt humiliated, I felt bad,” Deluque Barros recalls. “On the one hand, I keep thinking, ‘I should have tolerated it, because I needed the job. ’ But on the other hand, I’ve also been thinking that people should have dignity and shouldn’t have to endure so much just for a job.”
The state Agricultural Labor Relations Board is investigating the incident as a retaliatory firing. And the workers, now known as the Yolo Six, have been held up as an example of the need for California to do more to enforce heat safety rules for farmworkers that have been in place for nearly two decades.
A bill on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk aims to force employers to comply with the state's outdoor heat safety standards, making it easier for farmworkers to file a workers' compensation claim for heat illness.
SB 1299 would shift the burden of proof in workers’ compensation claims when a farmworker suffers a heat-related injury after working outdoors for an employer who fails to comply with heat regulations. Instead of the farmworker having to prove that the injury occurred on the job, as is typical in workers’ compensation cases, the employer would be responsible for proving that the illness was not work-related.
Opponents of the bill, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau, recognize the importance of protecting farmworkers from heat illness but argue that the issue should not be addressed through the workers' compensation system.
The legislation comes as many farmworkers continue to work in unsafe conditions and the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health faces a severe staffing shortage that hampers its ability to enforce heat regulations for outdoor workers.
The state's heat illness prevention standards, first enacted in 2005, require employers to provide outdoor workers with cool water, access to shade at a temperature of 80 degrees or higher, and cooling breaks when a worker requests them. Employers must also maintain a heat illness prevention plan with effective training for supervisors to recognize the signs and symptoms of heat illness.
Enforcement of the rules has proven difficult.
In 2009 and 2012, the United Farm Workers sued Cal/OSHA, accusing the agency of failing to enforce regulations.
A 2022 study by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center found that many farmworkers continued to work without protections.
Of the more than 1,200 farmworkers surveyed, 43% reported that their employers had not provided them with a heat illness prevention plan, and 15% said they had not received heat illness prevention training. Additionally, 20% reported that their employers did not monitor the temperature on hot days, 15% said their employers did not provide enough shade for breaks when temperatures reached 80 degrees or higher, and 22% said their employers did not monitor heat illness when the temperature reached 95 degrees.
“This has been a very persistent challenge: how do you make sure that the laws that are in place are the laws that are in place in the field?” said Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for the UFW, which sponsored SB 1299.
The bill’s author, Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), described SB 1299 as a “creative solution” that “takes the tools we have available and tries to cobble together an approach that will hopefully encourage greater compliance.”
Under the bill’s provisions, if an employer fails to comply with the rules, any heat-related injuries an employee suffers “will be presumed to arise out of and in the course of employment.” This would create a “rebuttable presumption,” which is most commonly used for law enforcement officers and firefighters who develop certain injuries that could arise from the inherent hazards of their jobs.
“Employers hate workers’ compensation presumptions so much that it makes me feel like they might actually work,” Cortese said. “The avoidance factor is so high among them that they say, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s actually easier for us to provide shade and water than to have to deal with a proliferation of expedited workers’ compensation claims.’”
“We’re trying to take something they see as a thorn in their side and use it as a disincentive for the kind of behavior we’re seeing,” he said.
Ashley Hoffman, a senior policy advocate for the California Chamber of Commerce, questioned the approach during an Assembly committee hearing in June, saying there is no evidence that the workers’ compensation system is failing with respect to heating claims filed by farmworkers.
He pointed to a legislative analysis by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute that found that very few heat illness claims had been filed in agriculture in California. The analysis also found that heat illness claims filed by agricultural workers have a denial rate of 11 percent, lower than the 12.4 percent to 13.3 percent denial rates for other outdoor occupations covered by the heat rule and the 14.7 percent denial rate for all claims.
“Using a very unique workers’ compensation system with its own unique procedures to address this separate problem, when the data shows us that the system itself is working well and as it’s supposed to with respect to these claims, we don’t believe is the right solution,” Hoffman said during the hearing.
Bryan Little, director of employment policy for the California Farm Bureau, called the legislation a “solution in search of a problem.” He noted that Cal/OSHA is already hiring for a new agricultural unit that would significantly expand enforcement offices, including in the communities of Lodi, Salinas, El Centro and Fresno.
“I don’t know what else to say,” Little said. “It’s problematic in terms of continuing to add rebuttable presumptions to workers’ compensation law when it’s not really necessary and Cal/OSHA is already taking steps to address the problem.”
Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto the bill.
This article is part of The Times article. Equity Information Initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundationexploring the challenges faced by low-income workers and the efforts being made to address them. California's economic divide.
