LOS ANGELES, CA – More than 40,000 people are expected to participate in a ‘pulpit day’ to remember farm workers who have died due to heat exposure while laboring in California fields since 2004. Dozens of religious groups will be joining efforts with workers and community leaders Sunday, July 26, to bring awareness about the plight of farm workers who often work under extremely hot temperatures without appropriate shade, rest, and/or water.
Farm workers and worker rights advocates will be going to different worship places to share their experiences with parishioners from all over Los Angeles and Orange counties. Participants will also have the opportunity to sign postcards expressing their support for the campaign to protect farm workers from dying in the fields due to heat exposure. The campaign, which is sponsored by the United Farm Workers and National Farm Workers Ministry, will also feature an interfaith Vigil Tuesday, July 28, at 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.
"It is obvious that the laws on the books are not the laws in the fields. In fact, in a recent report, Cal/OSHA admitted that a disturbing number of employers were not complying with the 2005 regulations," said United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez.
"We must tell the Governor and our legislators that the lives of those who help put food on our tables are too precious to continue to ignore," he added.
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 since from heat-related causes, 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.
Downtown-Los Angeles La Placita Church – next to Olvera Street – will be open to members of the media from 7:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. For details, please contact, Roman Pinal at 213-216-3518.
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