By Dennis Rocha – Bilingual Weekly
Sacramento, CA — Only two days away from celebrating the 85th anniversary of civil rights activist Cesar Chavez’s birthday, dozens of farm workers and supporters along the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) continued the legacy of Chavez on Thursday, March 29 at the State Capitol. They lobbied for a union-sponsored bill that will promote fair treatment to all farmworkers. Assembly Member Luis Alejo (D-Salinas) and the UFW, showed his support towards the heat regulation.
The Farm Worker Safety Act of 2012 Assembly Bill (AB) 2346 will ensure that water, shade and breaks are provided to farmworkers and will rigorously penalize noncompliance by making growers and farm labor contractors accountable for heat-related illness. “In 2005, the state passed a law that gives farmworkers the right to have access to drinking water, shade and breaks,” said Erica Lomeli, UFW Civic Participation and Policy Director. However, he explained that although we have these laws, the state fails to enforce them.
“It is absolutely abhorrent to think that in this day and age, farm workers are not regularly provided with shade and water,” said author of the bill Assemblywoman Betsy Butler, (D-Los Angeles) in a press release. “AB 2346 will move California’s heat-illness prevention law from being merely well-intentioned to effective in saving lives.”
The Farm Worker Safety Act will cost nothing to Californians says Lomeli…
Finish reading Farm workers continue Chavez Legacy
