7 p.m. Monday, August 16, in Boyle Heights
L.A. services mark one week since 13 farm workers died in Fresno van crash; Huerta helps collect signatures for reform bill
One week after 13 tomato workers were killed and two injured when their overloaded van crashed into a big rig southwest of Fresno, Angelenos will remember the accident victims and their families at a religious service Monday organized by the United Farm Workers.
UFW Secretary-Treasurer Dolores Huerta will be featured at the 7 p.m. observance at Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights. Huerta will ask participants to sign petitions in support of proposed state legislation that would beef up safety requirements for farm labor vehicles.
The van in which the workers died did not have proper seats or seat belts. Workers were packed onto benches running the length of the hollowed-out vehicle. Such vans are commonplace in California, especially in the Central Valley. But they are not illegal since farm labor vehicles are exempt from safety rules that apply to other passenger vans.
Most processing tomato laborers on the westside of the San Joaquin Valley are hired through farm labor contractors and not directly by growers. In many cases, farm workers are forced to pay fees to labor contractors for rides in unsafe transportation supplied by the contractors.
Highway tragedies such as the Aug. 9 crash will continue, the UFW contends, until growers are held responsible for a "corrupt" farm labor system that encourages abuses of workers. Growers use contractors to insulate themselves from liability for how workers are treated, the union argues.
Who: UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta and L.A. farm worker supporters.
What: A religious service remembering the farm workers and their families killed in last week’s van crash near Fresno, and gathering support for reforms to strengthen state safety rules on farm labor vehicles.
When: 7 p.m., Monday, Aug. 16, 1999.
Where: Mission Dolores, 171 So. Gless (at 4th St.) in Boyle Heights.
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