OSHA Cites Labor Contractor after Farmworker Dies from Heat

Duette, FL (WorkersCompensation.com) – OSHA has cited a farm labor contractor after the investigation into the death of a farmworker who died because of the heat. 

According to OSHA, on April 5, 2022, a farm worker employed by Citrus Harvesting, Inc., became disoriented while picking strawberries. Witnesses said the worker was unresponsive and, after a coworker took him to a housing unit, he died. Authorities said it was his second day on the job. 

Authorities said temperatures at the farm in Duette, Fla., reached 89-degreees that day. 

After investigating the incident, OSHA cited Citrus Harvesting Inc. with a $29,004 fine for two federal workplace safety violations – exposing workers to heat hazards and failing to ensure the workers were trained in first aid. 

OSHA said in a press release that Citrus Harvesting didn’t maintain an effective heat illness prevention plan and did not create a work and rest schedule based on environmental conditions. A work and rest schedule helps new hires become acclimated to working in the heat, the agency said. 

“Citrus Harvesting Inc. failed to take reasonable steps to ensure employees assigned to work outdoors in hot temperatures are taking frequent rest and water breaks,” OSHA’s Tampa Area Office Director Danelle Jindra said in a statement. “An effective heat illness prevention plan could have prevented this tragedy.” 

Last September, OSHA announced enhanced and expanded measured to protect workers from the hazards of extreme heat. The agency recently published a rulemaking notice to begin the process of creating a heat-specific workplace standard that advocates said would more effectively protect employees from extreme heat. 

Over the past decade, worker deaths due to heat have been on the rise. In 2019, there were 43 reported worker deaths from heat illnesses. A 2021 investigation by NPR and the Columbia Journalism Investigations unit of Columbia Journalism School, at least 384 workers have died due to the heat in the last decade. The investigation found that the average number of worker heat-related deaths has doubled since the early 1990s, according to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since 2002, 65 of those deaths have been farm workers.

Farm worker’s rights have changed much since over the past two decades. 

On May 14, 2008, María Isavel Vásquez Jiménez, a pregnant 17-year-old farm worker from Oaxaca, Mexico, died from heat stroke in the fields of Northern California. Her uncle, Doroteo Jimenez, said she had recently moved to the states and was on her second day at work when she died. 

Doroteo, who was also a farm worker, demanded action, and her death sparked protests across the state. 

That same year, OSHA reported eight heat-related deaths in California. Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to protect farm workers from heat-related deaths and illnesses. Doroteo said that despite assurances from Cal/OSHA that there were adequate numbers of inspectors in the field, he had not ever seen one. 

"There weren't any protections for us. The law has now been enforced and people know their rights whether they're dealing with heat or sexual harassment," he said. 

Heat-related deaths in agriculture workers peaked in California in 2019 with 20 reported illnesses. In the past two years, they have dipped back down to seven, however. Since 2005, there have been 70 heat-related worker deaths in California. Of those, roughly 25 percent have happened in agriculture workers. 

Cal/OSHA said it’s likely that number is underreported because the state relies on companies to report the injuries and deaths themselves. 

"We get about 50 heat-related illnesses a year that are reported to us and our medical unit confirms as heat-related illness, but I've seen other estimates by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of about 480 heat-related illnesses a year, and I've seen a study that looked at workers compensation data in California that showed up to 1,000 heat-related illnesses here in California," said David Hornung, who’s the heat and agriculture program coordinator for Cal/OSHA, told KCRA. 

Since Maria’s death, Cal/OSHA’s regulations have been strengthened twice – in 2010 and in 2015. The department has increased “heat sweeps” across the state, with more than 140 high heat inspections expected in 2022, about one and a half times what the department has done in previous years. 

So far, the department has issued 29 violations to companies for failing to provide water and 22 violations for to provide access to shade. 

The agency has said they are also doing labor rights caravans throughout the state to educate farm workers about their rights. The presentations are given in Spanish, English, Mixteco and other languages of the indigenous farm workers.

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