Farmworkers

As Extreme Heat and Smoke Threaten U.S. Farmworkers, Federal Health Leaders Evaluate ProtectionsLeaders of the Department of Health and Human Services will meet throughout the spring and summer to help protect farm laborers from heat and wildfire smokeBy Ariel Wittenberg & E&E NewsHealth and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra described the risks faced by his father, a farmworker in California. Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | A group of the nation’s health experts will…

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. —  It’s not news to Bernardina Medrano and Margarita Martinez that many migrant farmworkers along the San Mateo County coast live in “deplorable” conditions, as Gov. Gavin Newsom and county Supervisor Ray Mueller have described.Medrano, 43, who pays $850 a month to share a two-bedroom trailer in Pescadero with four other adults and two children, has been here 16 years. Martinez, who lives in a garage, has been here more than 10.They say finding affordable and safe housing is one of the…

And it’s only going to get worse. In a 2020 paper, University of Washington researchers calculated that the average number of “days spent working in unsafe conditions” due to excessive heat will likely double by mid-century, and triple by the end of it. Yet Washington is one of just four states with specific rules to protect workers from dangerous heat, along with California, Oregon, and Minnesota. Legislatures in Nevada, Maryland, and Colorado have passed laws requiring state agencies to develop heat standards for…