LOS ANGELES, CA – Members of several different religious groups will come together Tuesday, July 28, for an interfaith vigil to remember 15 farm workers who have died due to heat exposure while laboring in California fields since 2004. The event will be held at the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market on Olympic Boulevard (one block west of Alameda) starting at noon. Approximately 200 people are expected to attend the vigil.
The vigil, which is sponsored by the United Farm Workers and National Farm Workers Ministry, is part of a campaign to bring awareness about the plight of farm workers who often work under extremely hot temperatures without appropriate shade, rest, and/or water. Last Sunday, more than 25 religious groups from all over Los Angeles and Orange counties participated in a ‘pulpit day.’ About 40,000 parishioners had the opportunity to listen to farm workers’ experiences and to sign postcards expressing their support for the campaign to protect farm workers from dying in the fields due to heat exposure.
Heat-related illness and deaths are a threat every year in California’s agricultural fields, where 650,000 farm workers labor in temperatures that regularly exceed 100 degrees. In 2005, California implemented the first-in-the-nation heat regulations aimed to protect farm workers from dying from heat illness. Yet, 11 farm workers have died from heat-related causes since the enactment of those laws, with six farm workers dying last summer alone. Among those who have died are: Maria Isabel Jimenez, 17; Audon Felix, 42, Ramiro Carrillo Rodriguez, 48; Salud Zamudio-Rodriguez, 42; and Ramon Hernandez, 42.
Please join us:
Who: UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez and NFWM Executive Director Virginia Nesmith
What: Interfaith groups hold a vigil to honor 15 farm workers who died from heat-related illness
When: Tuesday, July 28, starting at noon.
Where: LA Produce market is located at Olympic –one block west of Alameda (Olympic & McGarry)
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