Weekly Briefing

State Ag Commissioner helps block real protections for farmworkers 

As a general political rule, there’s nothing inherently wrong with compromise and incremental change. Compromise, after all, is embedded in the very DNA of the American system of checks and balances and incremental change is often the best that advocates for the poor and the marginalized can realistically expect – especially when battling powerful vested interests.

In some instances, however, compromise and incremental change just don’t cut it. This is particularly true when those who have suffered for years and years are, after making persistent demands, granted a fraction of some protection or resource that ought to be guaranteed in toto to all as a matter of basic decency and human rights.

In these circumstances, incremental change can serve to reemphasize the aggrieved group’s lack of complete rights or protections and, in so doing, make matters seem even worse. Such a pattern is, of course, a large part of the African-American community’s collective story over the past 250 years.  

Half measures on farmworker health

A recent and smaller scale example of “incrementalism” at its worst arose last week in North Carolina when a special task force appointed by Governor Easley issued its recommendations regarding the issue of farmworker pesticide exposure. The task force was established earlier this year in response to a series of well-publicized and horrific stories regarding the exposure of North Carolina farmworkers and their families to dangerous levels of pesticides – particularly by the giant vegetable grower, Ag Mart.

Initially, the group was a welcome addition to the landscape on this long-neglected issue. Unfortunately, last week’s report and recommendations fell well short on several important fronts. Indeed, some of the recommendations include things that have already been mandated by the federal government or otherwise implemented. As such, though better than nothing, the report seemed mostly to highlight the basic workplace protections that most farmworkers (and their families) are denied and to reemphasize their second class status in the American workplace.

Here’s how Fawn Pattison of the group Toxic Free North Carolina described the recommendations:

“Within the report's recommendations you'll find budget requests for several of the agencies that were represented on the Task Force, ideas for the expansion of many voluntary and educational programs, and very little reform. Only one of the recommendations brought by farmworker advocates, a provision that would outlaw retaliation against workers who report workplace safety problems, was adopted by the Task Force.”

Pattison and other advocates identify at least three basic recommendations submitted by the farmworker advocacy community that were noticeably absent from the task force’s recommendation. These include:

#1 – Keeping workers' names confidential when they report workplace safety problems. This recommendation is absolutely essential. Farmworkers are, by definition, a poor, exploited and vulnerable group. Even under the least intimidating circumstances, it’s difficult to get members of such groups to come forward with complaints. Right now, the state Department of Agriculture allows anonymous complaints, but it will not interview any worker who will not provide his or her name. When names are provided, the Department will not hold those names confidential and will release them to the employer and the press, if requested.  

#2 – Requiring that records be kept on all pesticide applications (not just “restricted use” pesticides). It’s hard to imagine another industry in North Carolina (as it is with agriculture) in which employers would not be required to keep track of when they apply large quantities of poison directly to the workplace itself or, most importantly, when they send employees back into such a workplace. At a minimum, such a requirement should apply for at least the first 96 hours after application (the maximum wait for some so-called “restricted use” pesticides). These changes are essential if there is going to be some basic standardization in the practices and policies followed by the state’s numerous growers. 

#3 – Reforming and toughening the penalty scheme. Unlike the case with OSHA violations, a pesticide violation must be “willful” in order for an agricultural employer to be fined. This means that, as happened with AgMart, the grower can violate the law and endanger workers’ lives but escape punishment because the violation was the result of carelessness. Even if punishment is imposed, agricultural fines are laughably low for such life and death matters (a maximum of $500). In contrast, non-agricultural pesticide users like golf courses face fines of up to $2000 per violations. Such a lax standard and penalty scheme must be toughened if North Carolina is really serious about deterring dangerous farmworker pesticide exposure.

Fashioning a better solution

Ultimately, though it is not without some useful suggestions, the Governor’s task force seems ill-equipped to push the pesticide reform football over the goal line – particularly with the state Agriculture Commissioner riding shotgun as the designated agribusiness defender (and zero farmworkers or farmworker representatives among its members). As Fawn Pattison notes:    

“The Task Force faced several challenges in its structure, including the absence of any farmworker representatives. Because the recommendations were made by consensus, any Task Force member was able to prevent recommendations from going forward. One Task Force member in particular, Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler, was extremely effective in preventing the Task Force from taking up several of the reform measures they discussed.”

In other words, if North Carolina is truly going address the workplace poisoning crisis that plagues thousands of its hardest working and lowest paid workers, state lawmakers must take the matter into their own hands in a forum in which it takes more than one “no” vote to stop things from progressing. Ideally, this would mean giving serious consideration during the upcoming short session of the General Assembly to legislation that would implement basic farmworker safety demands.

Moving forward

Two weeks ago, Governor Easley decried the conditions under which thousands of workers in the state’s poultry packing industry labor.

“It's just horrible,” he said. “This cannot be allowed to continue regardless of what budget situations are.”

Unfortunately, the Governor’s description is also true for much of the rest of industrial chain that puts food on most North Carolinians’ dinner plates each night – whether it’s in a meat packing factory in Tar Heel or on the fields of a tomato farm in Brunswick County. 

If North Carolina is going to make real headway in attacking such deeply ingrained and daunting problems, state leaders will need to muster the same level of passion and commitment that the Governor hinted at when discussing the poultry worker scandal. Ultimately, this means demanding more than the kind of incremental change that the Governor’s own pesticide task force put forth last week.  

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 8:22 am and is filed under Weekly Briefing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.