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"content": "\u003cp>On Friday, the fifth day of an open-ended strike by Kaiser Permanente mental health workers across Northern California, some 200 employees and supporters marched to the health care giant’s Oakland headquarters, demanding that management increase staffing and resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were among the roughly 2,000 Kaiser therapists, social workers and other mental health care staffers across Northern California — represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers — who formed picket lines outside Kaiser facilities this week, after negotiations with management ended without resolution last weekend. Those striking said employee morale is dangerously low and patient care has become substandard due to long wait times for treatment. [aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11922524,news_11922748,news_11921580\"] Kaiser officials have called the strike unethical to patients and counterproductive, pointing to the shortage of mental health professionals nationwide. A company representative declined to participate in an interview, citing ongoing negotiations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But in a statement issued Friday, Deb Catsavas, senior vice president of human resources at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, reiterated the company’s stance that the strike and “disruption to patient care” were unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“While [the National Union of Healthcare Workers] claims it is fighting for increased access to care, its primary demand is for union members to spend less time seeing patients,” said Catsavas. “Our patients cannot afford a proposal that significantly reduces the time available to care for our patients and their mental health needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strike comes amid what the White House has described as an unprecedented mental health crisis among Americans of all ages.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why are Kaiser mental health care workers striking?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“We’re striking because it’s demoralizing to work for a company that actively does things to capitalize on burnout,” Naomi Johnson, an associate clinical social worker for Kaiser, told KQED Forum. “We’re really working very hard as clinicians to try to see patients as frequently as we can, and to provide the care that we’re trained [for] and good at providing. And we’re not supported in doing that by the company.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser tells patients that “if you have any sort of concerns or you want to come to therapy, please reach out,” added Johnson. “And then as providers, we’re told, ‘Only treat people who meet medical necessity.’ So it’s really difficult because we have this huge influx of people trying to seek services, but there aren’t enough of us to actually meet the demand, so we’re just completely overwhelmed. … We’re drowning, as clinicians.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11923078\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"a protest\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers rally before a march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>How does understaffing affect patients seeking treatment?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“There are currently 2,600 Kaiser patients for every mental health worker in (the) Northern California Kaiser system,” Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker in Kaiser’s psychiatry department in Oakland, told Forum. That means the average Kaiser therapist sees between seven and 12 patients per day, while someone in private practice might see between three and six. After a series of initial intake calls, the majority of Kaiser patients calling with a “nonurgent” need wait between two and three months to see a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Union of Healthcare Workers points to \u003ca href=\"https://nuhw.org/more-than-2000-kaiser-permanente-mental-health-clinicians-to-start-open-ended-strike-august-15/\">internal Kaiser documents illustrating\u003c/a> that “patients who received an initial mental health assessment on June 13 weren’t scheduled for follow-up appointments for a month in San Francisco, more than two months in Sacramento and three months or more in other parts of Northern California.” That length of time, experts say, does a disservice to those who have already taken the often-difficult first step of seeking support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal is to help people get better and terminate,” said Marcucci-Morris. “But the system within Kaiser does not allow for that. It’s the opposite. People are waiting longer, and deteriorating to where they either give up and pay [for therapy] out of pocket, which sets up a system for folks who have those resources to pay a private practice therapist and get better.” She said people who can’t afford private therapy and insurance premiums aren’t able to get better. “They get worse and they stay in Kaiser and they just stay sick,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923083\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11923083\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"protestors reflected in a bus window\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters hold signs on the picket line outside Oakland Kaiser Medical Center. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>What is causing the understaffing?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kaiser administrators point to what they describe as a nationwide staffing shortage. “Across the country, there are not enough mental health care professionals to meet the increased demand for care,” said Kaiser’s Catsavas in an Aug. 15 statement. “This has created challenges for Kaiser Permanente and mental health care providers everywhere.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company administrators say they have worked to combat the shortage by hiring new mental health clinicians, including nearly 200 new clinicians since January 2021; improving mental health care access through virtual care; and launching a $500,000 initiative to recruit new employees.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Ilana Marcucci-Morris, Kaiser psychiatrist\"]‘There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser.’[/pullquote]But those on strike said the severity of the shortage is specific to Kaiser, and that burnout and poor working conditions are contributing to low retention of existing employees, and making it difficult for the company to recruit new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser,” said Marcucci-Morris. “We get into this field to help people, and it’s hard to recruit therapists when Kaiser’s reputation is known to make people wait so long for therapy sessions. It’s really, really not ethical. And I personally have a handful of colleagues and friends who are therapists with time in their schedules who I’ve tried to recruit for Kaiser. But the reputation is just so poor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s more appealing, said those striking, for qualified therapists to work for a private practice. “Workers just don’t want to work for Kaiser anymore, and that’s the real crisis we’re facing,” said Marcucci-Morris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union said the rate at which mental health clinicians are leaving Kaiser nearly doubled in the past year, with 668 clinicians leaving between June 2021 and May 2022, compared to 335 clinicians the previous year. In a union survey of 200 of those departing clinicians, 85% said they were leaving because their workload was unsustainable or because they felt they did not have enough time to complete the work, and 76% said they were unable to “treat patients in line with standards of care and medical necessity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to grow the mental health workforce, there’s no doubt about that,” California state Senator Scott Wiener told KQED Forum. “It is also the case that the shortage is not as severe right now as the health plans say … health plans can take steps to expand their workforce, including paying better, providing better reimbursements to private providers, and those are investments that they should be making that they have not made.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s the case that they can just throw up their hands and say, we have some challenges with the workforce, and so therefore, we’re going to make people wait three months,” he added. “We have real shortages of physical health care providers, but we don’t tolerate around physical health what we have long tolerated around mental health, which is effectively denying people access to lifesaving care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923080\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11923080\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"a baby in a stroller as part of a protest \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers carry signs on the picket line outside Oakland Kaiser Medical Center on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Has California passed any recent laws to address this shortage?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://openstates.org/ca/bills/20212022/SB221/\">Senate Bill 221\u003c/a>, which passed in 2021 and went into effect July 1, 2022, said that “health plans, including Kaiser, must provide timely access to mental health and addiction treatment,” Senator Wiener told Forum. “And that means a prompt first visit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law codifies existing regulations from the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance that require a health care service plan or an insurer to ensure that “for an enrollee requesting a non-urgent appointment with a non-physician mental health care provider … appointments are offered within 10 business days of the request for an appointment.” Follow-up visits have to happen within two weeks, added Wiener.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB858\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Senate Bill 858\u003c/a>, which recently passed on the California State Assembly floor and will now move to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, would update the way health insurance companies are fined for violations, something that hasn’t been updated or even adjusted for inflation since the 1970s, said Wiener. Currently, the maximum fine possible stands at $2,500 per violation; the bill, if passed, would increase that amount to $25,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think that will create a much larger incentive to actually follow the law and provide people with timely and appropriate access to health care,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What exactly are the strikers asking for? What’s the current status of negotiations?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In negotiations that led up to the strike, the National Union of Healthcare Workers accepted Kaiser’s wage-increase offer. But the union held fast on its demand that nine hours per week — up from the current six hours — be allotted for administrative work. Kaiser rejected that demand, arguing it would not leave adequate time to see patients. The company’s counteroffer, of an additional 1.2 hours for that work, was flatly rejected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We wouldn’t be striking right now if money was the primary [issue],” said Marcucci-Morris, pointing to burnout, retention issues and poor morale — as well as what the union describes as the lack of a clear plan for how the company is going to meet the requirements laid out by SB 221.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not going to fix the problems to buy the therapists out and pay us more,” she said. “What good is more pay when you’re drowning and can’t come up for air?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How is the strike affecting patients in need of care?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kaiser is legally obligated to continue providing care for its members during a labor strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Beginning this week, our patients will receive care from those mental health clinicians who choose patient needs over the strike, as well as from our psychiatrists, clinical managers, and other licensed professionals,” said Catsavas in a statement on the first day of the strike, while noting that “some nonurgent appointments may need to be rescheduled” and that patients whose appointments might be affected “will be directly contacted prior to the date of the appointment to ensure they receive the care they need.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Kaiser officials have called the strike unethical to patients and counterproductive, pointing to the shortage of mental health professionals nationwide. A company representative declined to participate in an interview, citing ongoing negotiations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">But in a statement issued Friday, Deb Catsavas, senior vice president of human resources at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, reiterated the company’s stance that the strike and “disruption to patient care” were unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“While [the National Union of Healthcare Workers] claims it is fighting for increased access to care, its primary demand is for union members to spend less time seeing patients,” said Catsavas. “Our patients cannot afford a proposal that significantly reduces the time available to care for our patients and their mental health needs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strike comes amid what the White House has described as an unprecedented mental health crisis among Americans of all ages.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why are Kaiser mental health care workers striking?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“We’re striking because it’s demoralizing to work for a company that actively does things to capitalize on burnout,” Naomi Johnson, an associate clinical social worker for Kaiser, told KQED Forum. “We’re really working very hard as clinicians to try to see patients as frequently as we can, and to provide the care that we’re trained [for] and good at providing. And we’re not supported in doing that by the company.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kaiser tells patients that “if you have any sort of concerns or you want to come to therapy, please reach out,” added Johnson. “And then as providers, we’re told, ‘Only treat people who meet medical necessity.’ So it’s really difficult because we have this huge influx of people trying to seek services, but there aren’t enough of us to actually meet the demand, so we’re just completely overwhelmed. … We’re drowning, as clinicians.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923078\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11923078\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"a protest\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57886_021_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers rally before a march from Oakland Kaiser Medical Center to Kaiser’s corporate headquarters on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>How does understaffing affect patients seeking treatment?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“There are currently 2,600 Kaiser patients for every mental health worker in (the) Northern California Kaiser system,” Ilana Marcucci-Morris, a licensed clinical social worker in Kaiser’s psychiatry department in Oakland, told Forum. That means the average Kaiser therapist sees between seven and 12 patients per day, while someone in private practice might see between three and six. After a series of initial intake calls, the majority of Kaiser patients calling with a “nonurgent” need wait between two and three months to see a therapist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Union of Healthcare Workers points to \u003ca href=\"https://nuhw.org/more-than-2000-kaiser-permanente-mental-health-clinicians-to-start-open-ended-strike-august-15/\">internal Kaiser documents illustrating\u003c/a> that “patients who received an initial mental health assessment on June 13 weren’t scheduled for follow-up appointments for a month in San Francisco, more than two months in Sacramento and three months or more in other parts of Northern California.” That length of time, experts say, does a disservice to those who have already taken the often-difficult first step of seeking support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal is to help people get better and terminate,” said Marcucci-Morris. “But the system within Kaiser does not allow for that. It’s the opposite. People are waiting longer, and deteriorating to where they either give up and pay [for therapy] out of pocket, which sets up a system for folks who have those resources to pay a private practice therapist and get better.” She said people who can’t afford private therapy and insurance premiums aren’t able to get better. “They get worse and they stay in Kaiser and they just stay sick,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923083\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11923083\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"protestors reflected in a bus window\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57866_005_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers and supporters hold signs on the picket line outside Oakland Kaiser Medical Center. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>What is causing the understaffing?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kaiser administrators point to what they describe as a nationwide staffing shortage. “Across the country, there are not enough mental health care professionals to meet the increased demand for care,” said Kaiser’s Catsavas in an Aug. 15 statement. “This has created challenges for Kaiser Permanente and mental health care providers everywhere.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Company administrators say they have worked to combat the shortage by hiring new mental health clinicians, including nearly 200 new clinicians since January 2021; improving mental health care access through virtual care; and launching a $500,000 initiative to recruit new employees.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But those on strike said the severity of the shortage is specific to Kaiser, and that burnout and poor working conditions are contributing to low retention of existing employees, and making it difficult for the company to recruit new ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There isn’t a shortage of clinicians. There’s only a shortage of clinicians that want to work for Kaiser,” said Marcucci-Morris. “We get into this field to help people, and it’s hard to recruit therapists when Kaiser’s reputation is known to make people wait so long for therapy sessions. It’s really, really not ethical. And I personally have a handful of colleagues and friends who are therapists with time in their schedules who I’ve tried to recruit for Kaiser. But the reputation is just so poor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s more appealing, said those striking, for qualified therapists to work for a private practice. “Workers just don’t want to work for Kaiser anymore, and that’s the real crisis we’re facing,” said Marcucci-Morris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union said the rate at which mental health clinicians are leaving Kaiser nearly doubled in the past year, with 668 clinicians leaving between June 2021 and May 2022, compared to 335 clinicians the previous year. In a union survey of 200 of those departing clinicians, 85% said they were leaving because their workload was unsustainable or because they felt they did not have enough time to complete the work, and 76% said they were unable to “treat patients in line with standards of care and medical necessity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to grow the mental health workforce, there’s no doubt about that,” California state Senator Scott Wiener told KQED Forum. “It is also the case that the shortage is not as severe right now as the health plans say … health plans can take steps to expand their workforce, including paying better, providing better reimbursements to private providers, and those are investments that they should be making that they have not made.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s the case that they can just throw up their hands and say, we have some challenges with the workforce, and so therefore, we’re going to make people wait three months,” he added. “We have real shortages of physical health care providers, but we don’t tolerate around physical health what we have long tolerated around mental health, which is effectively denying people access to lifesaving care.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11923080\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11923080\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg\" alt=\"a baby in a stroller as part of a protest \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/08/RS57907_044_KQED_KaiserStrikeOakland_08192022-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kaiser mental health care workers carry signs on the picket line outside Oakland Kaiser Medical Center on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the fifth day of an open-ended strike. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Has California passed any recent laws to address this shortage?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://openstates.org/ca/bills/20212022/SB221/\">Senate Bill 221\u003c/a>, which passed in 2021 and went into effect July 1, 2022, said that “health plans, including Kaiser, must provide timely access to mental health and addiction treatment,” Senator Wiener told Forum. “And that means a prompt first visit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law codifies existing regulations from the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance that require a health care service plan or an insurer to ensure that “for an enrollee requesting a non-urgent appointment with a non-physician mental health care provider … appointments are offered within 10 business days of the request for an appointment.” Follow-up visits have to happen within two weeks, added Wiener.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB858\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Senate Bill 858\u003c/a>, which recently passed on the California State Assembly floor and will now move to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, would update the way health insurance companies are fined for violations, something that hasn’t been updated or even adjusted for inflation since the 1970s, said Wiener. Currently, the maximum fine possible stands at $2,500 per violation; the bill, if passed, would increase that amount to $25,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We think that will create a much larger incentive to actually follow the law and provide people with timely and appropriate access to health care,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What exactly are the strikers asking for? What’s the current status of negotiations?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In negotiations that led up to the strike, the National Union of Healthcare Workers accepted Kaiser’s wage-increase offer. But the union held fast on its demand that nine hours per week — up from the current six hours — be allotted for administrative work. Kaiser rejected that demand, arguing it would not leave adequate time to see patients. The company’s counteroffer, of an additional 1.2 hours for that work, was flatly rejected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We wouldn’t be striking right now if money was the primary [issue],” said Marcucci-Morris, pointing to burnout, retention issues and poor morale — as well as what the union describes as the lack of a clear plan for how the company is going to meet the requirements laid out by SB 221.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not going to fix the problems to buy the therapists out and pay us more,” she said. “What good is more pay when you’re drowning and can’t come up for air?”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How is the strike affecting patients in need of care?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kaiser is legally obligated to continue providing care for its members during a labor strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Beginning this week, our patients will receive care from those mental health clinicians who choose patient needs over the strike, as well as from our psychiatrists, clinical managers, and other licensed professionals,” said Catsavas in a statement on the first day of the strike, while noting that “some nonurgent appointments may need to be rescheduled” and that patients whose appointments might be affected “will be directly contacted prior to the date of the appointment to ensure they receive the care they need.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California's July Unemployment Rate Is Lowest in Nearly 50 Years",
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"content": "\u003cp>California’s unemployment rate fell to 3.9% in July, the lowest point since 1976, as employers in the nation’s most populous state continued to defy expectations by adding 84,800 new jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New numbers released Friday by the state’s Employment Development Department, showing month-over-month job growth in 17 out of the last 18 months, suggest that \u003ca href=\"https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/news_releases_and_announcements/unemployment-july-2022/\">California’s labor market has so far been largely immune\u003c/a> from record-high inflation nationwide and a cooldown in the housing market, both of which have prompted warnings of an economic slowdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten of California’s 11 industry sectors had job growth in July, led by big gains in computer systems’ design, advertising, security services and health care. While California makes up 11.7% of the nation’s civilian labor force, the state accounted for 16.1% of all new jobs in the U.S. last month, according to Friday’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 18.5 million Californians were employed in July, an increase of nearly a million people since July 2021, according to the report. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed Californians in July — 758,700 — was down by some 648,000, as compared to last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That job gain in the state comes despite a decline in both job postings and sales of single-family homes — a major driver of California’s economy — the latter slowing 14.4% in July compared to June, and down 31.1% from a year ago, according to the California Association of Realtors. California’s housing market reflects \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/home-sales-prices-1331a8bd045d3cef81174e81154bb26d\">an overall slowdown in home sales nationally\u003c/a>, which declined in July for the sixth straight month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s certainly surprising,” former EDD Director Michael Bernick said of California’s job gains. “It goes against all the other economic indicators.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"jobs\"]California lost more than 2.7 million jobs in just the first two months of the pandemic in 2020, when Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order that forced many businesses to close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has taken more than two years for the state to get most of those jobs back, and July’s upbeat jobs report indicates the state has recovered 97.3% of those pandemic job losses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now an attorney with the Duane Morris law firm, Bernick — who closely tracks California’s labor market — said he suspects California is still being propped up by billions of dollars from federal stimulus spending and the state’s budget surplus. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act in Congress will also send more money to the state, lowering some prescription drug costs while \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/8758c06e78dc33a9e472bff6517bdb85\">helping millions pay their monthly health insurance premiums\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Bernick cautioned, “That is not going to continue forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest reason for the decline in California’s unemployment rate is the large number of new jobs added in July. But another factor is that an estimated 23,400 people stopped looking for work in July, reducing the state’s labor force. Some industries are continuing to see an acute labor shortage, mostly in restaurants and hotels, according to Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the labor force will go up in the future because people need to earn extra income to beat inflation,” he said. “We are already seeing so-called gig employment rising because some people are holding two or three jobs. The fear of an oncoming recession, if we are not in one already, will cause people to look for work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s budget includes $9.5 billion in refunds to about 23 million people, something Newsom touted Friday when boasting about the low unemployment rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have historic reserves and we’re putting money back in peoples’ pockets as we continue to lead the nation’s economic recovery,” he said in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm\">unemployment rates dropped in 14 states in July, rose in three, and stayed the same in 33\u003c/a>, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s unemployment rate is slightly lower than the one in Texas, but still higher than those in Florida and Alabama — all Republican-led states whose leaders Newsom has publicly feuded with in recent months.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "New state data released Friday shows month-over-month job growth in 17 out of the last 18 months, with nearly 1 million more Californians employed than last year.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California’s unemployment rate fell to 3.9% in July, the lowest point since 1976, as employers in the nation’s most populous state continued to defy expectations by adding 84,800 new jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New numbers released Friday by the state’s Employment Development Department, showing month-over-month job growth in 17 out of the last 18 months, suggest that \u003ca href=\"https://edd.ca.gov/en/about_edd/news_releases_and_announcements/unemployment-july-2022/\">California’s labor market has so far been largely immune\u003c/a> from record-high inflation nationwide and a cooldown in the housing market, both of which have prompted warnings of an economic slowdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ten of California’s 11 industry sectors had job growth in July, led by big gains in computer systems’ design, advertising, security services and health care. While California makes up 11.7% of the nation’s civilian labor force, the state accounted for 16.1% of all new jobs in the U.S. last month, according to Friday’s report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 18.5 million Californians were employed in July, an increase of nearly a million people since July 2021, according to the report. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed Californians in July — 758,700 — was down by some 648,000, as compared to last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That job gain in the state comes despite a decline in both job postings and sales of single-family homes — a major driver of California’s economy — the latter slowing 14.4% in July compared to June, and down 31.1% from a year ago, according to the California Association of Realtors. California’s housing market reflects \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/home-sales-prices-1331a8bd045d3cef81174e81154bb26d\">an overall slowdown in home sales nationally\u003c/a>, which declined in July for the sixth straight month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California lost more than 2.7 million jobs in just the first two months of the pandemic in 2020, when Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order that forced many businesses to close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has taken more than two years for the state to get most of those jobs back, and July’s upbeat jobs report indicates the state has recovered 97.3% of those pandemic job losses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now an attorney with the Duane Morris law firm, Bernick — who closely tracks California’s labor market — said he suspects California is still being propped up by billions of dollars from federal stimulus spending and the state’s budget surplus. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act in Congress will also send more money to the state, lowering some prescription drug costs while \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/8758c06e78dc33a9e472bff6517bdb85\">helping millions pay their monthly health insurance premiums\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Bernick cautioned, “That is not going to continue forever.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest reason for the decline in California’s unemployment rate is the large number of new jobs added in July. But another factor is that an estimated 23,400 people stopped looking for work in July, reducing the state’s labor force. Some industries are continuing to see an acute labor shortage, mostly in restaurants and hotels, according to Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the labor force will go up in the future because people need to earn extra income to beat inflation,” he said. “We are already seeing so-called gig employment rising because some people are holding two or three jobs. The fear of an oncoming recession, if we are not in one already, will cause people to look for work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s budget includes $9.5 billion in refunds to about 23 million people, something Newsom touted Friday when boasting about the low unemployment rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have historic reserves and we’re putting money back in peoples’ pockets as we continue to lead the nation’s economic recovery,” he said in a news release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm\">unemployment rates dropped in 14 states in July, rose in three, and stayed the same in 33\u003c/a>, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s unemployment rate is slightly lower than the one in Texas, but still higher than those in Florida and Alabama — all Republican-led states whose leaders Newsom has publicly feuded with in recent months.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Thousands of mental health care workers maintained picket lines Wednesday in front of Kaiser Permanente facilities in the Bay Area and Central Valley, the third day of an open-ended strike to demand the health care giant increase mental health staffing and wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This strike is a long time coming,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, among a growing number of state legislative leaders backing the workers. “There have been major issues at Kaiser in terms of providing people with timely access or any access to mental health and addiction treatment and the workers have been advocating for years to have more staffing and compliance with the law and that hasn’t happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Lechner, a therapist focused on addiction services for youth, was among a throng of protesters outside a Kaiser Oakland facility on Tuesday, where workers chanted, “What do we want? Patient care. When do we want it? Now!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lechner said Kaiser doesn’t offer him enough time to carry out essential tasks like answering phone calls and emails, or referring patients to other experts, forcing him and his colleagues to regularly work extra hours in order to complete crucial administrative tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I need to communicate with your primary care physician about what substances you’re abusing, where’s my time to do that?” he said.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11922524,forum_2010101884368,stateofhealth_21358\"]The National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents Kaiser psychologists, therapists, social workers and chemical dependency counselors in Northern California, is in the thick of negotiating a new contract with Kaiser, and demanding the company hire more mental health workers to ease the burden placed on current staff. The union said negotiations with management this weekend ended without resolution, with Kaiser rejecting the union’s “proposals to increase staffing and end dangerously long waits for mental health therapy appointments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nicole Riddle, a labor and delivery nurse, said she has experienced the consequences of staffing shortages, not only as a health care worker, but also as a Kaiser member who has tried to access mental health services for herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve had my own experiences, both trying to advocate for myself throughout really traumatic birth experiences, postpartum depression, and then for my own child,” she said. “And I feel like Kaiser kind of banks on people being burnt out enough to not keep escalating and advocating for themselves. And then those who are privileged enough to do so pay out of pocket.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We deserve a better situation,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/committed-to-reaching-a-fair-and-equitable-agreement\">In a statement\u003c/a> issued Sunday, after negotiations stalled, Deb Catsavas, Kaiser’s regional senior vice president of human resources, said the Oakland-based company has “the deepest appreciation and gratitude for our mental health professionals and the extraordinary care they provide to our members.” But, she noted, “there are not enough mental health care professionals to meet the increased demand for care,” both locally and nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has hired “nearly 200 new clinicians since January 2021” and launched a $500,000 initiative to recruit new mental health practitioners, Catsavas added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Despite the union’s harmful tactics, we remain committed to bargaining in good faith to reach a fair and equitable agreement that is good for our therapists and our patients,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In negotiations, the union accepted Kaiser’s wage-increase offer, but held fast on its demand that nine hours per week — up from the current six hours — be allotted for administrative work. Kaiser, however, rejected that demand, arguing it would not leave adequate time to see patients. Its counteroffer, of an additional 1.2 hours for that work, was flatly rejected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law requires health care providers like Kaiser to offer patients timely care even during labor strikes, and state regulators say they are closely monitoring consumer complaints about the company’s compliance. Kaiser has said it will prioritize urgent mental health situations, but may have to reschedule some ongoing appointments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb, who joined Oakland staffers on the picket line on Tuesday, said mental health care has been undervalued for far too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mental health care is health care. And (it) needs to stop being seen as the stepchild of health care,” Kalb said, pointing to the longstanding demand for services that has only further escalated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Kaiser should be ashamed of themselves for not staffing up the mental health care clinicians that they need and not paying them a fair wage. It’s inexcusable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalb called for “unanimous support” for mental health workers, not just at Kaiser, but in all health care settings “to make sure that there are enough health care workers everywhere to meet the needs that people have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Matthew Green contributed reporting.\u003c/em> [ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Thousands of mental health care workers maintained picket lines Wednesday in front of Kaiser Permanente facilities in the Bay Area and Central Valley, the third day of an open-ended strike to demand the health care giant increase mental health staffing and wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This strike is a long time coming,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, among a growing number of state legislative leaders backing the workers. “There have been major issues at Kaiser in terms of providing people with timely access or any access to mental health and addiction treatment and the workers have been advocating for years to have more staffing and compliance with the law and that hasn’t happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Lechner, a therapist focused on addiction services for youth, was among a throng of protesters outside a Kaiser Oakland facility on Tuesday, where workers chanted, “What do we want? Patient care. When do we want it? Now!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lechner said Kaiser doesn’t offer him enough time to carry out essential tasks like answering phone calls and emails, or referring patients to other experts, forcing him and his colleagues to regularly work extra hours in order to complete crucial administrative tasks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I need to communicate with your primary care physician about what substances you’re abusing, where’s my time to do that?” he said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents Kaiser psychologists, therapists, social workers and chemical dependency counselors in Northern California, is in the thick of negotiating a new contract with Kaiser, and demanding the company hire more mental health workers to ease the burden placed on current staff. The union said negotiations with management this weekend ended without resolution, with Kaiser rejecting the union’s “proposals to increase staffing and end dangerously long waits for mental health therapy appointments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nicole Riddle, a labor and delivery nurse, said she has experienced the consequences of staffing shortages, not only as a health care worker, but also as a Kaiser member who has tried to access mental health services for herself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve had my own experiences, both trying to advocate for myself throughout really traumatic birth experiences, postpartum depression, and then for my own child,” she said. “And I feel like Kaiser kind of banks on people being burnt out enough to not keep escalating and advocating for themselves. And then those who are privileged enough to do so pay out of pocket.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We deserve a better situation,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/labor-relations/committed-to-reaching-a-fair-and-equitable-agreement\">In a statement\u003c/a> issued Sunday, after negotiations stalled, Deb Catsavas, Kaiser’s regional senior vice president of human resources, said the Oakland-based company has “the deepest appreciation and gratitude for our mental health professionals and the extraordinary care they provide to our members.” But, she noted, “there are not enough mental health care professionals to meet the increased demand for care,” both locally and nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has hired “nearly 200 new clinicians since January 2021” and launched a $500,000 initiative to recruit new mental health practitioners, Catsavas added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Despite the union’s harmful tactics, we remain committed to bargaining in good faith to reach a fair and equitable agreement that is good for our therapists and our patients,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In negotiations, the union accepted Kaiser’s wage-increase offer, but held fast on its demand that nine hours per week — up from the current six hours — be allotted for administrative work. Kaiser, however, rejected that demand, arguing it would not leave adequate time to see patients. Its counteroffer, of an additional 1.2 hours for that work, was flatly rejected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law requires health care providers like Kaiser to offer patients timely care even during labor strikes, and state regulators say they are closely monitoring consumer complaints about the company’s compliance. Kaiser has said it will prioritize urgent mental health situations, but may have to reschedule some ongoing appointments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb, who joined Oakland staffers on the picket line on Tuesday, said mental health care has been undervalued for far too long.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Mental health care is health care. And (it) needs to stop being seen as the stepchild of health care,” Kalb said, pointing to the longstanding demand for services that has only further escalated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Kaiser should be ashamed of themselves for not staffing up the mental health care clinicians that they need and not paying them a fair wage. It’s inexcusable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalb called for “unanimous support” for mental health workers, not just at Kaiser, but in all health care settings “to make sure that there are enough health care workers everywhere to meet the needs that people have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Matthew Green contributed reporting.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Some of the lowest-wage workers are getting their livelihoods stolen by their own employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"4\">Employers deny workers overtime premiums, ask them to work “off the clock” or take their tips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"5\">In California, workers lost nearly $2 billion from not being paid the minimum wage in 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"6\">Most often the victims of wage theft are women, immigrants and people of color, researchers say; many work in restaurants, construction, hotels, car washes, garment businesses, farms, warehouses and nail salons. These workers are among those who \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/ca-divide-economic-inequality/2022/02/california-income-inequality/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"7\">bore the brunt\u003c/a> of job losses during the pandemic and have the most ground to make up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11916303,news_11919749,news_11913643\" label=\"Related Posts\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"8\">For years, California’s lawmakers have tried solving the wage theft problem by strengthening labor laws. Most workers who file wage theft claims wait months or years before getting a resolution; only a fraction who prevail get repaid lost wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"9\">Usually no one goes to jail for the theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"10\">Last year California made most wage theft a criminal offense. It also did away with the garment industry’s \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB62\" data-reader-unique-id=\"11\">system of paying workers by the piece \u003c/a>instead of by the hour. Now lawmakers are considering creating a statewide council to set wage and work conditions for the fast food industry. Here’s what you need to know about wage theft in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"13\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"14\">What is wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"36\">State officials list many ways employers steal workers’ money. Here are some common wage theft practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"39\">The Economic Policy Institute has cited other examples, such as an employer taking illegal deductions, confiscating tips or failing to pay tipped workers the difference between their tips and minimum wage, and misclassifying employees as independent contractors to pay a wage lower than the legal minimum.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"44\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"45\">How big is the problem of wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"67\">One way to look at it is how much workers try to recover in unpaid wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"68\">Last year California workers filed nearly 17,000 claims totaling more than $300 million in stolen wages, according to a database provided by the Labor Commissioner’s office. That may be an undercount; the office’s public website indicates as many as 19,000 claims filed last year. State officials haven’t explained the discrepancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"69\">Either way, that’s down from prior years, when on average 30,000 workers annually claimed $320 million in unpaid wages, the office told the Legislative Analyst’s Office in 2020. Workers recovered about $40 million, or one-eighth, of those claims, the LAO said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"86\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"87\">Wait times: How long does it take to get back stolen wages in California?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"109\">The state violates its own deadlines with wage theft cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"110\">By law the individual wage claims workers file with the Labor Commissioner’s Office are supposed to reach a hearing in 120 days. Then the office gets 15 days to decide whether or not the worker is owed money and how much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"111\">That can become a court judgment allowing the worker to claim the money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"112\">While the vast majority of cases settle before the hearing, other workers have faced long delays just to get a hearing before the Labor Commissioner’s Office. The average case filed last year that actually got a decision took double the time allowed by law. Thousands of cases filed in 2021 remain pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"119\">This chart measures the time between a worker filing a claim and the Labor Commissioner’s Office’s decision. CalMatters obtained data on these claims through a public records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"124\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"125\">Who is affected most by wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"147\">Wage theft is most prevalent in low-wage industries, according to advocates who say such workers often are not unionized and are reluctant to endanger their livelihoods by objecting to the theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"148\">Many of these jobs, other than construction, are service-sector jobs with a history of employing immigrants or minority workforces.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"155\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"156\">What does wage theft cost a typical worker’s family?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"178\">An \u003ca href=\"https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/links/S241812-LINK1.PDF\" data-reader-unique-id=\"179\">Economic Policy Institute\u003c/a> report found California workers who were victims of minimum wage theft — who were paid less than the legal minimum wage — lost out on $64 in pay a week, or about $3,400 a year in 2015, the most recent data available. Adjusting for inflation, that’s about $80 stolen each week, or $4,250 a year, based on June’s record 9.1% inflation rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"180\">For workers in low-wage industries, that means less food on the table, a harder time paying rent, or delayed trips to the doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"181\">A week’s worth of stolen wages can mean an empty 12-gallon gas tank in a car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"182\">A year of lost wages is the equivalent of three \u003ca href=\"https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/#/CA\" data-reader-unique-id=\"183\">months of child care\u003c/a> in California, or nearly one-and-a-half month’s rent in San Jose, nearly two months’ rent in Sacramento, and a little over a month’s rent in Los Angeles, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"184\">Rent.com.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"185\">Ironically, a year of stolen wages used to equate to a year of groceries for a family of four, but not this year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, now it would pay for only 75% of that typical family’s annual grocery bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"192\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"193\">California’s history of trying to tackle wage theft\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"215\">California lawmakers passed several laws in recent years to strengthen worker protections in industries where contracting is common, and to help workers collect unpaid wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"216\">Contracting allows big firms to escape liability for wage theft, advocates say, because the big firms hire contractors, who directly employ the workers and are often accused of wage theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"217\">If they were jointly liable, then the larger firms would be legally on the hook for any unpaid wages along with\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>their contractors and subcontractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"225\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"226\">How do California workers get their money back?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"248\">California law allows workers several ways to accuse employers of wage theft and to open a case for recovering alleged losses. The vast majority of claims are made by individual workers in an administrative hearing system run by the Department of Industrial Relations’ Labor Commissioner’s Office. In theory it’s intended to be a quick, inexpensive, accessible way to resolve complaints without needing to go to court, with opportunities to settle each step along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"251\">–Filing a complaint with the Bureau of Field Enforcement. The bureau, which also falls under the Labor Commissioner, conducts larger investigations of workplaces and issues citations or brings suits against employers that it says committed wage theft. The bureau relies on complaints and testimony from workers. Unlike the individual wage claims, these cases tend to be worksite-wide, and the bureau targets specific industries, some of which were picked by the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"252\">–Filing a lawsuit. A worker can file a private lawsuit against the employer for labor law violations. This is relatively rare, because it involves the worker hiring an attorney. If a worker finds a lawyer willing to take it on, the worker also can file suit under the state’s Private Attorneys General Act, which lets a worker sue the employer on behalf of the state. This takes the burden off the state to conduct its own investigation of every complaint, and the worker could represent all co-workers without having to get a judge to deem it a class action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"253\">–Seeking federal action by the U.S. Department of Labor. An employee must allege that federal labor laws were violated. The employee may file a wage-and-hour complaint with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/local-offices#ca\" data-reader-unique-id=\"254\">regional offices \u003c/a>in Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Orange County, Walnut Creek, San Jose, West Covina or Ontario.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"259\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"260\">Where do people most often file wage theft claims?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"282\">Workers file wage claims based on where they performed their jobs, legal experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"283\">A CalMatters analysis of claims filed with the Labor Commissioner’s office shows San Bernardino and Los Angeles — two cities with millions of low-wage workers in warehouse, garment, restaurant, and other industry work — had the highest numbers of individual wage claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"284\">The data paints a partial portrait of where wage theft occurs across the state. It includes claims at the Wage Claim Adjudication unit for 2021 gathered from the department’s search portal and from a public records request. It does not include the Bureau of Field Enforcement cases, which involve multiple workers at individual employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"295\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"296\">Have you experienced wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"319\">If you suspect your wages are being stolen, you can start by reaching out to your employer or manager to see if they can address the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"320\">But if you’re routinely not allowed to take your meal or rest breaks, and if your employer takes away the tips you’ve made, you may want to seek help outside your workplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"321\">Advocates suggest keeping track of the hours and dates you work. Hold on to paychecks and pay stubs; you may need copies if you choose to submit a claim. Also, keep a log of any correspondence between you and your employer about the suspected wage theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"322\">Another option is to contact one of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiaworkerpower.org/about_us\" data-reader-unique-id=\"323\">30 worker centers\u003c/a> or organizations like the \u003ca href=\"https://garmentworkercenter.org/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"324\">Garment Worker Center\u003c/a> or the \u003ca href=\"https://warehouseworkers.org/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"325\">Warehouse Worker Resource Center\u003c/a>, which help workers build their claims or connect with other workers who had wages stolen. Depending on the claim, a worker center may bring the case to the Labor Commissioner to trigger a Bureau of Field Enforcement investigation, which would require workers to give testimony.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"326\">You also may file a wage-and-hour complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor, which operates \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/local-offices#ca\" data-reader-unique-id=\"327\">regional offices \u003c/a>throughout the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"328\">Neither the California Labor Commissioner nor the U.S. Department of Labor will ask about immigration or citizenship status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "In California, workers lost nearly $2 billion from not being paid the minimum wage in 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.",
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"title": "When Employers Steal Wages, Here's How You Can Get Your Money Back | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Some of the lowest-wage workers are getting their livelihoods stolen by their own employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"4\">Employers deny workers overtime premiums, ask them to work “off the clock” or take their tips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"5\">In California, workers lost nearly $2 billion from not being paid the minimum wage in 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"6\">Most often the victims of wage theft are women, immigrants and people of color, researchers say; many work in restaurants, construction, hotels, car washes, garment businesses, farms, warehouses and nail salons. These workers are among those who \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/ca-divide-economic-inequality/2022/02/california-income-inequality/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"7\">bore the brunt\u003c/a> of job losses during the pandemic and have the most ground to make up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"8\">For years, California’s lawmakers have tried solving the wage theft problem by strengthening labor laws. Most workers who file wage theft claims wait months or years before getting a resolution; only a fraction who prevail get repaid lost wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"9\">Usually no one goes to jail for the theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"10\">Last year California made most wage theft a criminal offense. It also did away with the garment industry’s \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB62\" data-reader-unique-id=\"11\">system of paying workers by the piece \u003c/a>instead of by the hour. Now lawmakers are considering creating a statewide council to set wage and work conditions for the fast food industry. Here’s what you need to know about wage theft in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"13\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"14\">What is wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"36\">State officials list many ways employers steal workers’ money. Here are some common wage theft practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"39\">The Economic Policy Institute has cited other examples, such as an employer taking illegal deductions, confiscating tips or failing to pay tipped workers the difference between their tips and minimum wage, and misclassifying employees as independent contractors to pay a wage lower than the legal minimum.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"44\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"45\">How big is the problem of wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"67\">One way to look at it is how much workers try to recover in unpaid wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"68\">Last year California workers filed nearly 17,000 claims totaling more than $300 million in stolen wages, according to a database provided by the Labor Commissioner’s office. That may be an undercount; the office’s public website indicates as many as 19,000 claims filed last year. State officials haven’t explained the discrepancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"69\">Either way, that’s down from prior years, when on average 30,000 workers annually claimed $320 million in unpaid wages, the office told the Legislative Analyst’s Office in 2020. Workers recovered about $40 million, or one-eighth, of those claims, the LAO said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"86\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"87\">Wait times: How long does it take to get back stolen wages in California?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"109\">The state violates its own deadlines with wage theft cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"110\">By law the individual wage claims workers file with the Labor Commissioner’s Office are supposed to reach a hearing in 120 days. Then the office gets 15 days to decide whether or not the worker is owed money and how much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"111\">That can become a court judgment allowing the worker to claim the money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"112\">While the vast majority of cases settle before the hearing, other workers have faced long delays just to get a hearing before the Labor Commissioner’s Office. The average case filed last year that actually got a decision took double the time allowed by law. Thousands of cases filed in 2021 remain pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"119\">This chart measures the time between a worker filing a claim and the Labor Commissioner’s Office’s decision. CalMatters obtained data on these claims through a public records request.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"124\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"125\">Who is affected most by wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"147\">Wage theft is most prevalent in low-wage industries, according to advocates who say such workers often are not unionized and are reluctant to endanger their livelihoods by objecting to the theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"148\">Many of these jobs, other than construction, are service-sector jobs with a history of employing immigrants or minority workforces.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"155\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"156\">What does wage theft cost a typical worker’s family?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"178\">An \u003ca href=\"https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/links/S241812-LINK1.PDF\" data-reader-unique-id=\"179\">Economic Policy Institute\u003c/a> report found California workers who were victims of minimum wage theft — who were paid less than the legal minimum wage — lost out on $64 in pay a week, or about $3,400 a year in 2015, the most recent data available. Adjusting for inflation, that’s about $80 stolen each week, or $4,250 a year, based on June’s record 9.1% inflation rate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"180\">For workers in low-wage industries, that means less food on the table, a harder time paying rent, or delayed trips to the doctor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"181\">A week’s worth of stolen wages can mean an empty 12-gallon gas tank in a car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"182\">A year of lost wages is the equivalent of three \u003ca href=\"https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/#/CA\" data-reader-unique-id=\"183\">months of child care\u003c/a> in California, or nearly one-and-a-half month’s rent in San Jose, nearly two months’ rent in Sacramento, and a little over a month’s rent in Los Angeles, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"184\">Rent.com.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"185\">Ironically, a year of stolen wages used to equate to a year of groceries for a family of four, but not this year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, now it would pay for only 75% of that typical family’s annual grocery bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"192\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"193\">California’s history of trying to tackle wage theft\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"215\">California lawmakers passed several laws in recent years to strengthen worker protections in industries where contracting is common, and to help workers collect unpaid wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"216\">Contracting allows big firms to escape liability for wage theft, advocates say, because the big firms hire contractors, who directly employ the workers and are often accused of wage theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"217\">If they were jointly liable, then the larger firms would be legally on the hook for any unpaid wages along with\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>their contractors and subcontractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"225\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"226\">How do California workers get their money back?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"248\">California law allows workers several ways to accuse employers of wage theft and to open a case for recovering alleged losses. The vast majority of claims are made by individual workers in an administrative hearing system run by the Department of Industrial Relations’ Labor Commissioner’s Office. In theory it’s intended to be a quick, inexpensive, accessible way to resolve complaints without needing to go to court, with opportunities to settle each step along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"251\">–Filing a complaint with the Bureau of Field Enforcement. The bureau, which also falls under the Labor Commissioner, conducts larger investigations of workplaces and issues citations or brings suits against employers that it says committed wage theft. The bureau relies on complaints and testimony from workers. Unlike the individual wage claims, these cases tend to be worksite-wide, and the bureau targets specific industries, some of which were picked by the Legislature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"252\">–Filing a lawsuit. A worker can file a private lawsuit against the employer for labor law violations. This is relatively rare, because it involves the worker hiring an attorney. If a worker finds a lawyer willing to take it on, the worker also can file suit under the state’s Private Attorneys General Act, which lets a worker sue the employer on behalf of the state. This takes the burden off the state to conduct its own investigation of every complaint, and the worker could represent all co-workers without having to get a judge to deem it a class action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"253\">–Seeking federal action by the U.S. Department of Labor. An employee must allege that federal labor laws were violated. The employee may file a wage-and-hour complaint with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/local-offices#ca\" data-reader-unique-id=\"254\">regional offices \u003c/a>in Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Orange County, Walnut Creek, San Jose, West Covina or Ontario.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"259\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"260\">Where do people most often file wage theft claims?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"282\">Workers file wage claims based on where they performed their jobs, legal experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"283\">A CalMatters analysis of claims filed with the Labor Commissioner’s office shows San Bernardino and Los Angeles — two cities with millions of low-wage workers in warehouse, garment, restaurant, and other industry work — had the highest numbers of individual wage claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"284\">The data paints a partial portrait of where wage theft occurs across the state. It includes claims at the Wage Claim Adjudication unit for 2021 gathered from the department’s search portal and from a public records request. It does not include the Bureau of Field Enforcement cases, which involve multiple workers at individual employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 data-reader-unique-id=\"295\">\u003cspan data-reader-unique-id=\"296\">Have you experienced wage theft?\u003c/span>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"319\">If you suspect your wages are being stolen, you can start by reaching out to your employer or manager to see if they can address the issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"320\">But if you’re routinely not allowed to take your meal or rest breaks, and if your employer takes away the tips you’ve made, you may want to seek help outside your workplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"321\">Advocates suggest keeping track of the hours and dates you work. Hold on to paychecks and pay stubs; you may need copies if you choose to submit a claim. Also, keep a log of any correspondence between you and your employer about the suspected wage theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"322\">Another option is to contact one of California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.californiaworkerpower.org/about_us\" data-reader-unique-id=\"323\">30 worker centers\u003c/a> or organizations like the \u003ca href=\"https://garmentworkercenter.org/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"324\">Garment Worker Center\u003c/a> or the \u003ca href=\"https://warehouseworkers.org/\" data-reader-unique-id=\"325\">Warehouse Worker Resource Center\u003c/a>, which help workers build their claims or connect with other workers who had wages stolen. Depending on the claim, a worker center may bring the case to the Labor Commissioner to trigger a Bureau of Field Enforcement investigation, which would require workers to give testimony.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"326\">You also may file a wage-and-hour complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor, which operates \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/local-offices#ca\" data-reader-unique-id=\"327\">regional offices \u003c/a>throughout the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-reader-unique-id=\"328\">Neither the California Labor Commissioner nor the U.S. Department of Labor will ask about immigration or citizenship status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Why Are Truckers Blocking Access to the Port of Oakland?",
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"headTitle": "Why Are Truckers Blocking Access to the Port of Oakland? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update 4:30 p.m. Monday\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marine terminals were open and again operating normally at the Port of Oakland following a five-day long near-total shutdown by truckers, port officials said Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Port of Oakland has resumed full operations” on Saturday, said port executive director Danny Wan. “We appreciate the independent truck drivers’ use of the designated Free Speech Zones and we thank local law enforcement for their continued assistance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland police and other law enforcement agencies are working to keep traffic at the port moving, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Port spokesman Robert Bernardo said it will still likely take weeks to alleviate the backlog of goods at the port, resulting in further delays of product shipments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Last updated, 4:30 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cargo operations at the Port of Oakland remained largely stalled on Friday, as a convoy of truckers continued to block access to the facility for the fifth straight day to protest California’s gig-worker law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The demonstrations that began Monday involve hundreds of independent big-rig truckers who have prevented the movement of cargo in and out of the port’s terminals, in a bid to remain classified as independent contractors\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> – \u003c/span>rather than employees. Truckers held similar \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2022/07/ab-5-law-california-trucking/\">protests last week at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s very clear that there is so much uncertainty about how these independent drivers, these entrepreneurs, are going to be able to stay in business,” said Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association. The organization represents truckers servicing West Coast ports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The blockade, which couldn’t come at a worse time for the port, is further exacerbating longstanding global supply-chain issues spurred by the pandemic that have led to months of epic cargo ship traffic jams, with mountains of goods stockpiled on docks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.portofoakland.com/wp-content/uploads/Open-letter-for-truckers-07-21-2022.pdf\">In an open letter sent on Thursday evening\u003c/a>, Danny Wan, executive director of the port, said he had met with protest organizers, and emphasized that he understood their frustrations, offering to support them in any negotiations with state. But he implored them to allow operations at the port to resume, warning of the collateral damage further disruptions would inflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wan said the port had set aside “free speech zones” for truckers to protest without disrupting the flow of commerce, and warned that any demonstrators whose trucks continued to obstruct terminal entrances or exits could be cited and face additional penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Port officials and organizers planned to meet again on Friday afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At issue is \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5\">Assembly Bill 5\u003c/a>, a law passed in 2019 making it harder for companies to legally classify many workers as independent contractors instead of as employees. Under state labor law, employees are entitled to minimum wage and benefits such as workers compensation, overtime and sick pay. The law\u003ca href=\"https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/dynamex-operations-west-inc-v-superior-court-34584\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> codified a 2018 state Supreme Court decision\u003c/a> that required companies to treat workers as employees if their jobs are considered a key part of business operations. It also spurred Lyft, Uber and DoorDash to throw a huge amount of cash behind \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11843123/prop-22-explained-why-gig-companies-are-spending-huge-money-on-an-unprecedented-measure\">Proposition 22\u003c/a>, a 2020 ballot measure approved by voters that exempted most rideshare drivers\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> – \u003c/span>and that last year was ruled unconstitutional by a state court judge. (The companies have since appealed and don’t have to comply while court proceedings play out.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a federal appeals court \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-courts-economy-business-government-and-politics-332e244b793604ba65946a3f3b99e271\">ruled last year that the law applies to some 70,000 truck drivers in the state \u003c/a>who are independent operators and don’t work for any one single company. The decision essentially requires companies that commission their services to classify them as employees, rather than independent contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the International Brotherhood of Teamsters called the ruling a “massive victory” for exploited truckers, the California Trucking Association staunchly objected, arguing the change would limit the flexibility of drivers who own their trucks and operate on their own hours. Ultimately, the association said, classifying truckers as employees would hinder their ability to make a living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trade group appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, stalling enforcement of the law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-194.html\">but the court last month denied their petition\u003c/a>, allowing the lower-court ruling to stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Protesters say the strike is largely intended to push Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers to exempt truck drivers from California labor law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the law is going to make us into employees of the company, even though I own my own truck, I pay for diesel, I pay for insurance,” said Randeep Dhillon, a self-employed trucker. Under the new law, he said, “I’m going to have to work under somebody else. My boss is going to tell me, ‘Hey, you have to be here at this time. You have to go at this time. You got to do this many loads.’ Now, if I feel like taking a day off, I can take a day off. If I want to reject a load … I’m like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to go.’ I’m an independent contractor. I have that right.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s been no word on when the state might begin enforcing the law, which is still being contested in lower courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Labor coverage\" tag=\"labor\"]In a statement on Thursday, a spokesperson for Newsom said “no one should be caught by surprise by the law’s requirements at this time,” and urged the trucking industry “to support this transition just as California has and continues to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is committed to supporting our truck drivers and ensuring [they] receive the protections and compensation they are entitled to,” the spokesperson said, pointing to available resources like employment tax incentives and small business financing. “The state will continue to partner with truckers and the ports to ensure the continued movement of goods to California’s residents and businesses, which is critical to all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, the former Assemblymember who authored AB 5 and now heads the California Labor Federation, took to Twitter this week to defend the law, arguing that it’s meant to help protect truckers from being exploited by some of the companies that hire them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the law says is that you can’t pretend a driver/worker is an independent business to avoid paying gas/equipment, workers comp, social security, wages for hours waiting, etc. by simply saying ‘they own their own truck,'” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/LorenaSGonzalez/status/1550088780408713217\">she said in a tweet\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Schrap of the Harbor Trucking Association says there needs to be some type of clarification about AB 5 and its impact on truckers. He pointed to the spate of industries exempted under the law, and questioned why trucking wasn’t among them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Obviously, there’s still outstanding questions,” he said. “If there weren’t outstanding questions about how this is going to apply, I don’t think any of these men and women would be down there protesting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are plenty of opportunities for truckers to become employees if they want to, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact of the matter is, is that these individuals do not want to be employees,” he said. “That’s where the clarification is needed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s Holly J. McDede contributed reporting to this story. \u003c/i>This story also includes reporting from the Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "A convoy of independent truckers blocked roads into the port for a fourth straight day on Thursday in protest of AB 5, California's gig-worker law, which requires them to be classified as employees rather than contractors.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update 4:30 p.m. Monday\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marine terminals were open and again operating normally at the Port of Oakland following a five-day long near-total shutdown by truckers, port officials said Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Port of Oakland has resumed full operations” on Saturday, said port executive director Danny Wan. “We appreciate the independent truck drivers’ use of the designated Free Speech Zones and we thank local law enforcement for their continued assistance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland police and other law enforcement agencies are working to keep traffic at the port moving, officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Port spokesman Robert Bernardo said it will still likely take weeks to alleviate the backlog of goods at the port, resulting in further delays of product shipments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Last updated, 4:30 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cargo operations at the Port of Oakland remained largely stalled on Friday, as a convoy of truckers continued to block access to the facility for the fifth straight day to protest California’s gig-worker law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The demonstrations that began Monday involve hundreds of independent big-rig truckers who have prevented the movement of cargo in and out of the port’s terminals, in a bid to remain classified as independent contractors\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> – \u003c/span>rather than employees. Truckers held similar \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2022/07/ab-5-law-california-trucking/\">protests last week at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it’s very clear that there is so much uncertainty about how these independent drivers, these entrepreneurs, are going to be able to stay in business,” said Matt Schrap, CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association. The organization represents truckers servicing West Coast ports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The blockade, which couldn’t come at a worse time for the port, is further exacerbating longstanding global supply-chain issues spurred by the pandemic that have led to months of epic cargo ship traffic jams, with mountains of goods stockpiled on docks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.portofoakland.com/wp-content/uploads/Open-letter-for-truckers-07-21-2022.pdf\">In an open letter sent on Thursday evening\u003c/a>, Danny Wan, executive director of the port, said he had met with protest organizers, and emphasized that he understood their frustrations, offering to support them in any negotiations with state. But he implored them to allow operations at the port to resume, warning of the collateral damage further disruptions would inflict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wan said the port had set aside “free speech zones” for truckers to protest without disrupting the flow of commerce, and warned that any demonstrators whose trucks continued to obstruct terminal entrances or exits could be cited and face additional penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Port officials and organizers planned to meet again on Friday afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At issue is \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5\">Assembly Bill 5\u003c/a>, a law passed in 2019 making it harder for companies to legally classify many workers as independent contractors instead of as employees. Under state labor law, employees are entitled to minimum wage and benefits such as workers compensation, overtime and sick pay. The law\u003ca href=\"https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/dynamex-operations-west-inc-v-superior-court-34584\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> codified a 2018 state Supreme Court decision\u003c/a> that required companies to treat workers as employees if their jobs are considered a key part of business operations. It also spurred Lyft, Uber and DoorDash to throw a huge amount of cash behind \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11843123/prop-22-explained-why-gig-companies-are-spending-huge-money-on-an-unprecedented-measure\">Proposition 22\u003c/a>, a 2020 ballot measure approved by voters that exempted most rideshare drivers\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> – \u003c/span>and that last year was ruled unconstitutional by a state court judge. (The companies have since appealed and don’t have to comply while court proceedings play out.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, a federal appeals court \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/california-courts-economy-business-government-and-politics-332e244b793604ba65946a3f3b99e271\">ruled last year that the law applies to some 70,000 truck drivers in the state \u003c/a>who are independent operators and don’t work for any one single company. The decision essentially requires companies that commission their services to classify them as employees, rather than independent contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the International Brotherhood of Teamsters called the ruling a “massive victory” for exploited truckers, the California Trucking Association staunchly objected, arguing the change would limit the flexibility of drivers who own their trucks and operate on their own hours. Ultimately, the association said, classifying truckers as employees would hinder their ability to make a living.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trade group appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, stalling enforcement of the law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-194.html\">but the court last month denied their petition\u003c/a>, allowing the lower-court ruling to stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Protesters say the strike is largely intended to push Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers to exempt truck drivers from California labor law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So the law is going to make us into employees of the company, even though I own my own truck, I pay for diesel, I pay for insurance,” said Randeep Dhillon, a self-employed trucker. Under the new law, he said, “I’m going to have to work under somebody else. My boss is going to tell me, ‘Hey, you have to be here at this time. You have to go at this time. You got to do this many loads.’ Now, if I feel like taking a day off, I can take a day off. If I want to reject a load … I’m like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to go.’ I’m an independent contractor. I have that right.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s been no word on when the state might begin enforcing the law, which is still being contested in lower courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In a statement on Thursday, a spokesperson for Newsom said “no one should be caught by surprise by the law’s requirements at this time,” and urged the trucking industry “to support this transition just as California has and continues to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is committed to supporting our truck drivers and ensuring [they] receive the protections and compensation they are entitled to,” the spokesperson said, pointing to available resources like employment tax incentives and small business financing. “The state will continue to partner with truckers and the ports to ensure the continued movement of goods to California’s residents and businesses, which is critical to all of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, the former Assemblymember who authored AB 5 and now heads the California Labor Federation, took to Twitter this week to defend the law, arguing that it’s meant to help protect truckers from being exploited by some of the companies that hire them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What the law says is that you can’t pretend a driver/worker is an independent business to avoid paying gas/equipment, workers comp, social security, wages for hours waiting, etc. by simply saying ‘they own their own truck,'” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/LorenaSGonzalez/status/1550088780408713217\">she said in a tweet\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Schrap of the Harbor Trucking Association says there needs to be some type of clarification about AB 5 and its impact on truckers. He pointed to the spate of industries exempted under the law, and questioned why trucking wasn’t among them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Obviously, there’s still outstanding questions,” he said. “If there weren’t outstanding questions about how this is going to apply, I don’t think any of these men and women would be down there protesting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are plenty of opportunities for truckers to become employees if they want to, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact of the matter is, is that these individuals do not want to be employees,” he said. “That’s where the clarification is needed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s Holly J. McDede contributed reporting to this story. \u003c/i>This story also includes reporting from the Associated Press.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A multibillion-dollar private prison company has allegedly maximized profits by coercing immigrant detainees locked up at two of its facilities in California to work for $1 a day, according to a class-action lawsuit filed July 13 in federal court in Fresno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qODBJRe2MOSHmTL0MIru7NG2lyKfcJ_R/view\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">legal challenge\u003c/a> accuses The GEO Group, a long-time contractor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with “systematic and unlawful wage theft, unjust enrichment and forced labor” at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility in Bakersfield and the nearby Golden State Annex in McFarland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaintiffs — nine ICE detainees who brought the lawsuit on behalf of other immigrants also jailed at the facilities — seek to recover unpaid wages, and for GEO to compensate its detained workforce with at least California’s minimum wage of $15 per hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GEO pays the paltry daily rate of $1 to detainees who volunteer to clean dormitories and dining halls, do laundry, assist detainees with disabilities and do other tasks to maintain the facilities, according to the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are civilians, we are being employed like this and I believe the right thing to do is give us what California has decided as its minimum wage to employees,” said Pedro Figueroa, 33, who until recently swept floors and scrubbed bathrooms at Mesa Verde for 40 hours per week. “We are fed up with all the injustices here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some detainees say they participate in the cleaning program to be able to afford phone calls with loved ones or commissary items, like dental floss and tortillas, which are not provided by the facility. The lawsuit argues that the program is not truly voluntary because GEO staffers may threaten or punish detainees with disciplinary action or loss of recreation, commissary, library and telephone access if they protest the inadequate pay, according to Gay Grunfeld, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Gay Grunfeld, attorney\"]‘It’s shocking. These workers are forced to do an eight-hour shift for $1 a day.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are being forced to work under threat of sanctions,” said Grunfeld of the San Francisco law firm Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld. “It’s shocking. These workers are forced to do an eight-hour shift for $1 a day. So that’s a blatant violation of California minimum wage laws and other labor protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint comes after Figueroa and other detainees joined a months-long labor strike by immigrants held at the two GEO-run detention centers to protest wages, unfair treatment and other issues, according to immigrant advocates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa, the father of four children who are U.S. citizens, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11919161/ice-detainees-protested-1-a-day-wage-now-theyre-in-solitary-confinement\">was held in a small, windowless cell for about a week\u003c/a> at Mesa Verde, which he said was retaliation for backing the work stoppage.[aside postID=news_11919161]Mohamed Mousa, a detainee who announced his support for the strike on June 28, remains in solitary confinement at the facility after more than two weeks, according to his attorney, Kelsey Morales, with the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional court cases in California and other states allege GEO and other for-profit operators of immigration detention centers have engaged in forced labor and minimum wage violations. Last year, a federal judge in Washington state ordered GEO to pay $23 million for failing to compensate detained workers with minimum wage at a facility in Tacoma. The Florida-based company reportedly shut down its worker program and is seeking to reverse the ruling before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is now considering the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for GEO has repeatedly denied the existence of a labor strike at either facility. He rejected the allegations by detainees as “completely without merit,” and said that ICE guidelines for the detention centers require detainees to keep their personal living areas clean. [aside tag=\"immigration\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]“The allegations brought in this lawsuit are similar to those brought in previous cases involving the federal government’s Voluntary Work Program, which GEO is contractually required to implement and administer on behalf of ICE,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company will vigorously defend itself against the accusations in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ICE declined to comment on the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christina Cano, a spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees investigations of potential wage theft, said detained immigrant workers in California are considered “employees” and are entitled to pursue civil remedy for unpaid wages, based on a ruling by a federal judge in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GEO, a multinational company that operates four out of seven immigration detention centers in California, made more than $3 billion per year in revenues in 2018, 2019 and 2020, according to the lawsuit. Contracts with ICE accounted for about 28% of its revenues in 2019 and 2020.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A multibillion-dollar private prison company has allegedly maximized profits by coercing immigrant detainees locked up at two of its facilities in California to work for $1 a day, according to a class-action lawsuit filed July 13 in federal court in Fresno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qODBJRe2MOSHmTL0MIru7NG2lyKfcJ_R/view\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">legal challenge\u003c/a> accuses The GEO Group, a long-time contractor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with “systematic and unlawful wage theft, unjust enrichment and forced labor” at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility in Bakersfield and the nearby Golden State Annex in McFarland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plaintiffs — nine ICE detainees who brought the lawsuit on behalf of other immigrants also jailed at the facilities — seek to recover unpaid wages, and for GEO to compensate its detained workforce with at least California’s minimum wage of $15 per hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GEO pays the paltry daily rate of $1 to detainees who volunteer to clean dormitories and dining halls, do laundry, assist detainees with disabilities and do other tasks to maintain the facilities, according to the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are civilians, we are being employed like this and I believe the right thing to do is give us what California has decided as its minimum wage to employees,” said Pedro Figueroa, 33, who until recently swept floors and scrubbed bathrooms at Mesa Verde for 40 hours per week. “We are fed up with all the injustices here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some detainees say they participate in the cleaning program to be able to afford phone calls with loved ones or commissary items, like dental floss and tortillas, which are not provided by the facility. The lawsuit argues that the program is not truly voluntary because GEO staffers may threaten or punish detainees with disciplinary action or loss of recreation, commissary, library and telephone access if they protest the inadequate pay, according to Gay Grunfeld, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘It’s shocking. These workers are forced to do an eight-hour shift for $1 a day.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are being forced to work under threat of sanctions,” said Grunfeld of the San Francisco law firm Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld. “It’s shocking. These workers are forced to do an eight-hour shift for $1 a day. So that’s a blatant violation of California minimum wage laws and other labor protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint comes after Figueroa and other detainees joined a months-long labor strike by immigrants held at the two GEO-run detention centers to protest wages, unfair treatment and other issues, according to immigrant advocates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa, the father of four children who are U.S. citizens, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11919161/ice-detainees-protested-1-a-day-wage-now-theyre-in-solitary-confinement\">was held in a small, windowless cell for about a week\u003c/a> at Mesa Verde, which he said was retaliation for backing the work stoppage.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mohamed Mousa, a detainee who announced his support for the strike on June 28, remains in solitary confinement at the facility after more than two weeks, according to his attorney, Kelsey Morales, with the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional court cases in California and other states allege GEO and other for-profit operators of immigration detention centers have engaged in forced labor and minimum wage violations. Last year, a federal judge in Washington state ordered GEO to pay $23 million for failing to compensate detained workers with minimum wage at a facility in Tacoma. The Florida-based company reportedly shut down its worker program and is seeking to reverse the ruling before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is now considering the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for GEO has repeatedly denied the existence of a labor strike at either facility. He rejected the allegations by detainees as “completely without merit,” and said that ICE guidelines for the detention centers require detainees to keep their personal living areas clean. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The allegations brought in this lawsuit are similar to those brought in previous cases involving the federal government’s Voluntary Work Program, which GEO is contractually required to implement and administer on behalf of ICE,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company will vigorously defend itself against the accusations in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ICE declined to comment on the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christina Cano, a spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees investigations of potential wage theft, said detained immigrant workers in California are considered “employees” and are entitled to pursue civil remedy for unpaid wages, based on a ruling by a federal judge in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GEO, a multinational company that operates four out of seven immigration detention centers in California, made more than $3 billion per year in revenues in 2018, 2019 and 2020, according to the lawsuit. Contracts with ICE accounted for about 28% of its revenues in 2019 and 2020.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Trabajar con una visa H-2A en EE.UU.: Las represalias que pueden enfrentar los trabajadores agrícolas que alzan la voz",
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"headTitle": "Trabajar con una visa H-2A en EE.UU.: Las represalias que pueden enfrentar los trabajadores agrícolas que alzan la voz | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]U[/dropcap]n par de botas, unas camisas y unos pantalones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eso fue lo que Samuel dejó el pasado octubre en el cuarto que compartía con otros trabajadores del campo en Mauritson Farms, un viñedo en el Condado de Sonoma, el cual está ubicado en el corazón de la región vitivinícola de California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Él iba de regreso a su pueblo natal en el estado mexicano de Oaxaca. La cosecha de la uva había terminado y el plazo de su visa H-2A pronto terminaría. Había trabajado para Mauritson Farms desde el 2019 con una visa H-2A, \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/es/trabajar-en-estados-unidos/trabajadores-temporales-no-inmigrantes/trabajadores-agricolas-temporales-h-2a\">la cual otorga a trabajadores agrícolas de todo el mundo una estancia temporal en Estados Unidos\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El programa H-2A, lanzado en 1986, es el sucesor al programa Bracero, el cual operó desde 1942 hasta 1964, y permitió que decenas de miles de mexicanos trabajaran en granjas estadounidenses. Sin embargo, grupos laborales han criticado al programa Bracero \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers\">por no proteger a los trabajadores que sufrieron robo de salarios, maltrato físico y pésimas condiciones laborales y de vida\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con la visa H-2A, Samuel y otros muchachos provenientes de pueblos y comunidades rurales cerca del municipio de Sola de Vega en Oaxaca venían a California para trabajar de febrero a octubre en los campos de Mauritson Farms, los cuales producen la marca de vino Mauritson Wines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samuel dejó sus pertenencias en Healdsburg con planes para regresar en 2022. Pero Mauritson Farms nunca lo volvió a contratar.\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003cbr>\nA finales de la temporada de cosecha del 2021, Samuel y otros cinco trabajadores de Oaxaca manifestaron su oposición a lo que para ellos habían sido condiciones laborales injustas e inseguras durante los últimos tres años. Según ellos, tuvieron que trabajar en temperaturas extremadamente altas sin las protecciones adecuadas contra el calor, parte de su salario fue descontado sin ninguna razón y además experimentaron abuso verbal del encargado que los supervisaba.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con el apoyo de North Bay Jobs With Justice, un grupo de derechos laborales en el Condado de Sonoma, los seis trabajadores se reunieron con el gerente del viñedo, Cameron Mauritson, el pasado mes de octubre para hablar sobre lo que estaba sucediendo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Se disculpó con nosotros, que él se sentía mal con lo que estaba pasando en su compañía”, dijo Kevin, uno de los trabajadores del campo que estaban presentes ese día. Kevin trabajó junto a Samuel durante esos tres años. “Él se comprometía a llevarnos otra vez para allá a trabajar”, agregó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para Samuel y Kevin (cuyos nombres verdaderos KQED no ha divulgado para protegerlos de posibles futuras represalias), esta promesa representaba mucho más que una oferta de trabajo para el siguiente año. Lo tomaron como una señal que podían expresarse libremente acerca de las condiciones laborales y que Mauritson no haría lo que más temían: tomar represalias contra ellos y nunca más contratarlos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dejamos nuestras cosas [en Mauritson Farms] creyendo que íbamos a regresar”, dijo Samuel, pero de esas promesas, dice, “no hay nada”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919456\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919456\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Unas viñas en un viñedo con uvas que ya han madurado y están listas para ser cosechadas.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Samuel y Kevin vinieron a California por primera vez en 2019 con visas H-2A y regresaban cada año hasta el 2021. Llegaban en febrero y se iban al final de la cosecha de uvas en octubre. Ahora esperan en Oaxaca por el fallo del ALRB. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>De los seis trabajadores que se reunieron con Mauritson en octubre, ninguno fue contratado de nuevo en 2022, pese a que presentaron sus solicitudes de trabajo con Cierto Global, la compañía externa de selección de personal. Tanto Samuel como Kevin creen que no fueron contratados otra vez porque se quejaron acerca de las condiciones laborales en los viñedos de Mauritson Farms. Sin embargo, lo que hicieron está dentro los derechos laborales y protección a los trabajadores en California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representantes de North Bay Jobs With Justice afirman que han intentado comunicarse con Mauritson varias veces desde febrero, sin recibir una respuesta. Además, Mauritson no aceptó la invitación de una entrevista con KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El 7 de febrero, North Bay Jobs With Justice presentó un cargo contra Mauritson Farms por parte de los seis trabajadores con el Consejo de Relaciones del Trabajo Agrícola de California (ALRB por sus siglas en inglés). El ALRB es la agencia estatal que investiga posibles abusos laborales en el sector agrícola. La denuncia \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/3.3.22-ULP-Against-Employer-Mauritson-Farms-Inc..pdf\">sostiene que Mauritson Farms discriminó contra los trabajadores\u003c/a> cuando esta compañía se negó a darles empleo luego de que estos formaron parte de una “actividad concertada”, o sea organizarse para pedir mejoras laborales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A medida que avanza la investigación del ALRB, Samuel y Kevin siguen buscando empleo en Oaxaca y en EE.UU., pero hay pocas oportunidades. Ya terminó la temporada para recibir una visa H-2A este año, entonces por ahora la única opción es buscar trabajo en México. Con pocos ahorros restantes y familias que mantener, se les está acabando el tiempo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Además de ser el estado con el sector agrícola más grande del país, California tiene la tercera parte de trabajadores extranjeros con una visa H-2A. El año pasado, \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22082364/h2a-statistics.pdf\">más de 32 mil obreros provenientes de todo el mundo llegaron a California con una visa H-2A\u003c/a> para trabajar en la industria agrícola. Y pese a que el estado ha desarrollado un sistema complejo de reglamentos y dependencias para proteger a estos trabajadores, los inmigrantes con visas H-2A siguen siendo extremadamente vulnerables a represalias ilegales por parte de sus empleadores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para contratar a trabajadores extranjeros, muchos empleadores usan una red de reclutadores externos que operan dentro y fuera del país. Trabajadores como Samuel y Kevin dependen de estos reclutadores para encontrar empleo en EE.UU. y navegar el proceso para recibir una visa H-2A.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, es común que estos reclutadores pongan en lista negra a empleados que denuncien un procedimiento laboral injusto, no sólo para un empleador, sino también para muchas empresas más en la industria agrícola. Para los trabajadores afectados, esto perjudica su futuro laboral en los EE.UU. y para funcionarios laborales estadounidenses, complica su tarea para hacer cumplir las leyes laborales que prohíben represalias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919454\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919454\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">El año pasado, más de 32 mil obreros provenientes de todo el mundo llegaron a California con una visa H-2A para trabajar en la industria agrícola. Pese a que estos trabajadores están protegidos por las mismas leyes laborales que cualquier otra persona, defensores laborales afirman que estos siguen siendo vulnerables a las represalias si denuncian prácticas laborales injustas o inseguras. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Es ilegal que los empleadores tomen represalias pero ‘aún así lo hacen’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Rice ha trabajado como abogada de derechos laborales por más de 20 años. Ahora es la directora de litigio, abogacía y entrenamiento en California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA, o en español, Asistencia Jurídica Rural de California) un despacho de abogados que ofrece ayuda legal. Rice ha representado a decenas de trabajadores del campo en casos que implican condiciones laborales peligrosas, robo de sueldos y represalias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando habla con un cliente por primera vez, recalca lo siguiente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es ilegal que un empleador tome represalias”, dijo, pero agregó que, “nunca decimos que un empleador no puede tomar represalias porque claro que pueden hacerlo. Sólo que es ilegal y aún así lo hacen”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gracias a décadas de activismo liderado por campesinos e inmigrantes, California cuenta con varias dependencias que hacen cumplir las leyes laborales, entre ellas los reglamentos que prohíben represalias. El ALRB fue creado luego de que el entonces gobernador Jerry Brown \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/196/2018/05/ALRA_Spanish_051805.pdf\">aprobara la Ley de Relaciones Laborales Agrícolas en 1975\u003c/a>, la cual garantiza el derecho de los trabajadores del campo a la negociación colectiva. A parte de eso, la \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/\">Oficina del Comisionado Laboral\u003c/a> investiga sueldos mal pagados o robados, y la Administración de Seguridad y Salud Ocupacional de California (Cal/OSHA por sus siglas en inglés) hace cumplir reglamentos estatales, \u003ca href=\"http://www.99calor.org/_downloads/complaint.sheet_spanish.pdf\">como las protecciones contra el calor para quienes trabajan al aire libre\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Cynthia Rice, Abogada de CRLA\"]‘Nunca decimos que un empleador no puede tomar represalias porque claro que pueden hacerlo. Sólo que es ilegal y aún así lo hacen.’[/pullquote]A nivel nacional, el Departamento de Trabajo procesa las órdenes de trabajo del programa H-2A y regula los contratos de trabajadores extranjeros. Dentro de esta dependencia, la \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd\">División de Salarios y Horas de Trabajo\u003c/a> investiga casos en donde compañías no están pagando a sus empleados adecuadamente o se niegan a ofrecer vivienda, transporte o comida, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">lo cual es requerido por el gobierno federal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muchos trabajadores agrícolas contactan a Rice después de que perdieron sus empleos o al final de la temporada de cosecha. “Ahí es cuando hablan sobre posible robo de sueldos, si no les dieron de comer o si su lugar de trabajo no tenía baños”, ella explicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero ese momento ya es muy tarde, dice ella, particularmente para los trabajadores con visa H-2A que tienen una estancia limitada en EE.UU. Esto limita el tiempo que abogados como Rice tienen para recaudar pruebas y testimonios antes de que el trabajador se vaya del país, lo cual complica el proceso aún más ya que muchos obreros vienen de comunidades rurales y aisladas en México, Centroamérica y el Caribe con muy poca conexión celular o internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entonces, ¿por qué esperar hasta el último momento para alzar la voz?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hay varias maneras en que los trabajadores con visa H-2A pueden experimentar una represalia. Una es perder su trabajo (y al mismo tiempo sus visas), pero también pueden sufrir amenazas o castigos. Samuel recuerda que a su cuadrilla le tocó trabajar en los viñedos cuando las temperaturas superaban los 95 grados Fahrenheit (equivalente a 35 centígrados). “A veces nos sentíamos bien deshidratados que se desmayaba uno”. dijo. “Sentíamos que queríamos vomitar”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11881727\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/07/HOUSE-BURNING-IMAGE-1020x574.jpg\"]Cuando le avisaron al encargado cómo se sentían, Samuel afirma que este se rió y les dijo que siguieran trabajando. Kevin agregó que había varios días calurosos en que los trabajadores no recibieron ninguna protección, lo cual va en contra de leyes estatales. “Estaba el calor a 90, 95 grados y no había ninguna sombra para tomar un vaso de agua o sentarte a descansar un ratito. Nada de eso”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando el mercurio sube a los 80 grados Fahrenheit (equivalente a 26.7 centígrados), Cal/OSHA \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886628/feeling-the-heat-how-workers-can-advocate-for-safer-working-conditions-under-the-sun\">exige a los empleadores que proporcionen suficiente agua, sombra y descanso a sus trabajadores\u003c/a>. En términos prácticos, cada empleado debe recibir al menos un cuarto de galón de agua (equivalente a 950 mililitros) por hora y puede descansar en la sombra a cualquier momento que lo necesite. Sin embargo, una investigación de NPR en 2021 reveló que \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">más de 40 trabajadores agrícolas murieron en California por golpe de calor\u003c/a> y otras enfermedades relacionadas al calor dentro de un periodo de 10 años.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal/OSHA afirma que las muertes relacionadas al calor se pueden prevenir, pero esta dependencia ha lidiado con falta de personal suficiente por varios años, lo cual \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">limita su capacidad para regular las miles de granjas, campos y viñedos que operan a lo largo de California\u003c/a>. Por ende, la responsabilidad de proteger a los trabajadores del calor termina siendo la del empleador únicamente.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Una red de represalias en EE.UU. y el extranjero\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Según un reporte del Centro de los Derechos del Migrante publicado en 2020, \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tiempo-De-Reforma.pdf\">es bastante común que los empleadores en el programa H-2A usen amenazas para ejercer mayor control sobre sus trabajadores y prevenir que alcen la voz\u003c/a>. La organización entrevistó a 100 trabajadores que previamente formaron parte del programa H-2A y 100 por ciento de ellos experimentaron al menos una seria violacion legal de sus derechos y 94 por ciento de ellos, al menos tres violaciones a sus derechos laborales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice de CRLA señala que los empleadores en el programa H-2A tienen muchísimo control sobre sus trabajadores. Un empleador debe proveer \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">vivienda, comida, además de transporte de ida y vuelta del sitio de trabajo\u003c/a>. Además, muchos trabajadores no tienen su propio vehículo, ni una licencia para conducir y por ende dependen de sus jefes para hacer viajes esenciales como comprar comida o recibir atención médica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Un trabajador que experimenta malas condiciones de trabajo siempre puede irse de manera voluntaria, ¿verdad?” dijo Rice. “Bueno, eso no es cierto para los trabajadores con visa H-2A”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11906800\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/02/Paloma-Reyes-1020x765-1.jpg\"]“Este programa funciona de manera similar al trabajo no abonado que se vio por varias décadas después de la Guerra Civil de EE.UU, a través de la aparcería”, agregó la abogada. “El trabajador depende tanto del empleador que sería imposible decir que son libres para buscar otras oportunidades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La influencia de un empleador abusivo puede perjudicar a un trabajador incluso cuando este último ya haya regresado a su país natal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para contratar a nuevos trabajadores, muchos empleadores utilizan a reclutadores externos que operan por todo el mundo. El proceso para reclutar trabajadores está repleto de abusos. Los reclutadores a veces \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tiempo-De-Reforma.pdf\">cobran a trabajadores cantidades exorbitantes para conectarlos con compañías estadounidenses y otros mienten por completo acerca de las oportunidades laborales que pueden ofrecer\u003c/a>. Aún más, un reporte publicado en el 2015 por la Oficina de Contabilidad del Gobierno (GAO por sus siglas en inglés) señaló que estos reclutadores \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">ponen en la lista negra a cualquier empleado que denuncia un abuso por parte de su jefe\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estos reclutadores, que van desde individuos operando de manera informal hasta multinacionales, generalmente trabajan para múltiples compañías agrícolas en EE.UU. Cuando un reclutador pone a un trabajador en la lista negra, esto va más allá de un solo empleador, sino que tiene repercusiones en sectores enteros de la industria agrícola.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice ha visto cómo esto sucede con varios de sus clientes. Luego de reportar a un empleador abusivo en un estado, estos trabajadores no pueden encontrar empleo en otros estados.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La primera cosa que un empleador hace después de que un trabajador se queja de su salario o condiciones laborales es llamar al reclutador para decirle, ‘No quiero contratar a esta persona el siguiente año porque se quejaron de mí’, y con eso, el trabajador ya no será contratado por esa compañía ni tampoco por todas las otras empresas que mantengan una conexión con ese reclutador”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Y cuando los trabajadores regresan a sus países de origen, todavía pueden ser perjudicados. El reporte de la GAO relata que cuando funcionarios estadounidenses viajaron a México para hablar con obreros que formaron parte del programa H-2A en el pasado, muchos de estos trabajadores tenían miedo de hablar. Según ellos, su preocupación era que alguien en su pueblo los viera y los reportara al reclutador que opera en esa zona.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Elizabeth Strater, Unión de Campesinos\"]‘Los reclutadores tienen una enorme cantidad de control sobre quién puede acceder a las visas dentro de estas comunidades.’[/pullquote]La Unión de Campesinos (UFW por sus siglas en inglés), sindicato que opera a nivel nacional, también ha notado este fenómeno. Elizabeth Strater, directora de campañas estratégicas de la UFW, explica cómo varios trabajadores con visa H-2A de origen jamaicano harán todo lo posible para aguantar a un empleador abusivo con el objetivo de permanecer en el grupo de solicitantes del siguiente año. “Los reclutadores tienen una enorme cantidad de control sobre quién puede acceder a las visas dentro de estas comunidades”, dijo Strater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando Mauritson Farms contrató por primera vez a su cuadrilla en 2019, Samuel y Kevin afirman que la compañía manejó el proceso para contratarlos a través de la aplicación WhatsApp y sin intermediarios. Pero en 2022, la empresa contrató a Cierto Global, una multinacional que se especializa en reclutar trabajadores agrícolas y hasta fue nombrada una “reclutadora ética” por el gobierno del presidente Joe Biden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero aún así, Samuel y Kevin se preocupan que ya no podrán encontrar trabajo en la industria agrícola de EE.UU. “Lo que yo pienso es que [Mauritson] ya no quieren tener más problemas y mejor metieron [el reclutador] para que escojan ahí mejor el que venga”, dijo Kevin.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Controlando a las redes de reclutadores\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>¿Cómo pueden los funcionarios laborales impedir que las empresas estadounidenses tomen represalias en contra los trabajadores con visa H-2A si esto sucede fuera del país?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El reporte de la GAO indica que actualmente existe muy poca regulación federal sobre el proceso de reclutamiento para el programa H-2A. Pese a que el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional mantiene una extensa lista de todos los inmigrantes con visa H-2A, no existe una base de datos a nivel federal con la información de los individuos o empresas que llevan a cabo estas actividades por parte de empresas estadounidenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Rubén Lugo, Departamento del Trabajo de EE.UU.\"]‘Nuestra autoridad para hacer cumplir la ley sólo existe en los Estados Unidos. No podemos regular lo que estos reclutadores externos están haciendo en México.’[/pullquote]Agencias estatales como el ALRB de California, que actualmente investiga el caso Mauritson, también se les dificulta hacer cumplir sus propias reglas laborales en estas situaciones. Jessica Arciniega, directora regional para esta dependencia, dice que estos casos son bastantes complicados para su agencia ya que enfrentan limitaciones jurídicas, pero en ciertos casos, este tipo de represalia puede formar parte de una investigación en curso sobre un procedimiento laboral injusto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si existe evidencia que un reclutador actuó como un agente del empleador, entonces eso puede ser algo que investiguemos”, dijo Arciniega.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A nivel federal, los funcionarios del Departamento del Trabajo también están limitados por su jurisdicción. “Nuestra autoridad para hacer cumplir la ley sólo existe en los Estados Unidos. No podemos regular lo que estos reclutadores externos están haciendo en México, por ejemplo”, dijo Rubén Lugo, coordinador regional de la agencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, si un grupo de trabajadores reporta un incumplimiento de contrato al Departamento de Trabajo por parte del empleador y el siguiente año ninguno de esos trabajadores es contratado nuevamente, “podemos ver claramente que estos trabajadores sufrieron una represalia”, dijo el funcionario.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En este caso, el gobierno federal puede ordenar al empleador que recontrate a los trabajadores afectados. Y si también hubo robo de sueldos, los funcionarios pueden exigir a la empresa que le pague a los obreros todo lo que les debe. Compañías reincidentes hasta pueden ser removidos del programa H-2A de manera permanente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero estas consecuencias sólo aplican a las empresas en Estados Unidos y no impactan a los reclutadores en el extranjero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Más en español' tag='kqed-en-espanol']En el 2018, más del 90 por ciento de los trabajadores con visa H-2A provenían de México y según el \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">reporte de la GAO\u003c/a>, existe una red bastante desarrollada de reclutadores dentro de ese país. Grupos defensores de migrantes insisten que el gobierno mexicano, al igual que los gobiernos de otros países que abastecen trabajadores para este programa, debe ser más proactivo en regular las actividades de estos reclutadores y también educar a sus connacionales acerca de sus derechos laborales antes de viajar a EE.UU.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero los funcionarios mexicanos que hablaron con KQED rechazaron esta idea y argumentan que esto no es la responsabilidad del gobierno mexicano, a pesar de que los mexicanos que trabajan en los campos de EE.UU. mandan millones de dólares cada año a México, lo cual sostiene gran parte de la economía de ese país.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Las visas H-2A no son un programa binacional”, dijo Remedios Gómez Arnau, cónsul general de México en San Francisco, y agregó que funcionarios mexicanos no tienen ningún papel en el proceso para contratar a los trabajadores del programa H-2A. El gobierno de México sólo se involucra cuando sus connacionales llegan a territorio estadounidense y se comunican con un consulado mexicano, explicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si la persona sale de territorio nacional y entra a otro territorio a donde tiene una visa, entonces donde nos podemos enterar es aquí si el connacional o la connacional se acerca al consulado y nos dice que tienen un problema”, dijo la cónsul. “Pero antes de eso, las autoridades mexicanas desconocen quién está viniendo aquí siendo contratado”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919520\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919520\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg\" alt='Un grupo de manifestantes protesta fuera de una oficina y lleva muchos carteles. Uno de ellos lee. \"Pago extra por peligros\".' width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Los trabajadores agrícolas y los organizadores del grupo North Bay Jobs With Justice protestan en las afueras del Departamento de Gestión de Emergencias del Condado de Sonoma el 9 de junio de 2022. Una coalición de trabajadores y organizadores está presionando al condado para que se establezcan cinco normas de seguridad, con el próposito de proteger a los trabajadores del campo a medida que los incendios forestales se intensifican debido al cambio climático. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘La manera en que protegemos a los trabajadores debe de también cambiar’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Samuel y Kevin no se arrepienten de haber alzado la voz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nosotros nos sentimos en nuestro derecho”, dijo Samuel y agregó, “No sólo es uno [que se quejó], pero somos varios”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para el equipo de North Bay Jobs With Justice, el cual ha apoyado a Samuel y a sus compañeros desde el año pasado, este caso podría ser un parteaguas en la lucha para proteger a los trabajadores del campo en la industria vitivinícola y el resto de California de represalias y procedimientos laborales injustos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11884929\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/hand-with-cell-phone.jpg\"]Si la agencia estatal ALRB falla en contra de Mauritson, esto podría alentar a otros trabajadores en la región a denunciar más abusos, dice Ana Salgado, una de las líderes de North Bay Jobs With Justice. Algo así podría ampliar el movimiento a favor de protecciones laborales en el campo antes de que se intensifique la temporada de incendios en California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Varios grupos que defienden los derechos de trabajadores agrícolas han formado una coalición para exigir al Condado de Sonoma que establezca \u003ca href=\"https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/farmworkers-deserve-safety-and-respect-in-sonoma-county?source=ig\">cinco protocolos de seguridad a medida que los incendios forestales aumentan a causa del cambio climático\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Las cinco demandas incluyen que la industria del vino capacite a sus empleados, en su idioma materno, sobre cómo evacuar y mantenerse seguros durante un incendio forestal. También exigen que se permita la entrada en los viñedos a observadores comunitarios para que estos observen si se están acatando los reglamentos de seguridad laboral. De esta forma, los activistas esperan que ningún trabajador se sienta solo cuando denuncie a un empleador abusivo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La Tierra está cambiando y la manera en que protegemos a los trabajadores debe de también cambiar”, dijo Salgado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919524\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919524\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Un grupo de manifestantes toca los tambores afuera de una oficina.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Un grupo de manifestantes protesta a las afueras del Departamento de Gestión de Emergencias del Condado de Sonoma el 9 de junio de 2022 para exigir mayores protecciones para los trabajadores agrícolas antes del inicio de la temporada de incendios forestales. Los organizadores señalan que el cambio climático seguirá empeorarando las condiciones laborales en el campo. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Más allá del Condado de Sonoma, activistas laborales proponen reformas estructurales al programa H-2A para hacer responsables tanto a empleadores como a reclutadores por las represalias que tomen. El Centro de los Derechos del Migrante \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tiempo-De-Reforma.pdf\">ha recomendado al Congreso que apruebe legislación que reforme el proceso de reclutamiento y garantice asistencia legal a trabajadores que hayan sufrido un abuso laboral\u003c/a>, incluso cuando estos se hayan ido del país. También aconseja a dependencias federales como el Departamento de Trabajo que formen una base de datos accesible a cualquier trabajador extranjero y que incluya información de todos los reclutadores y empleadores que participan en el programa H-2A.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Ana Salgado, North Bay Jobs With Justice\"]‘La Tierra está cambiando y la manera en que protegemos a los trabajadores debe de también cambiar.’[/pullquote]Por su parte, Cynthia Rice, la abogada de CRLA, señaló un vacío legal en las regulaciones del programa H-2A que castigan a empleadores abusivos: cuando un trabajador demanda a su empresa por un procedimiento laboral injusto, esta compañía puede llegar a un acuerdo legal con este trabajador y por ende evita admitir que violó una ley laboral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Al no aceptar cualquier responsabilidad por un delito, ese empleador puede entrar al programa H-2A otra vez el siguiente año”, dijo Rice. Si funcionarios federales tomarán en cuenta cuáles compañías llegan a acuerdos legales año tras año cuando están decidiendo qué empresas pueden formar parte del programa, eso podría prevenir que empleadores con una historia de abusos sigan contratando a más trabajadores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reformar el programa H-2A no sólo beneficiaría a obreros extranjeros, sino también protegería a trabajadores estadounidenses, dice Rice. Si es más fácil explotar a trabajadores con visa H-2A, esto los hace más atractivos para contratar ya que los empleadores saben que pueden explotar a estos sin tener que pagar las mismas consecuencias que cuando hacen lo mismo con estadounidenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Kevin, Formó parte del programa H-2A\"]‘Nos sentíamos mal con el maltrato que nos estaban dando y entonces empezamos a investigar sobre las cosas que [los empleadores] deben de hacer por ti.’[/pullquote]Mientras espera por el fallo del ALRB, Kevin comparte todo lo que aprendió el año pasado con sus compañeros que están considerando migrar a EE.UU. para trabajar. No quiere que otros pasen por lo mismo que le tocó a él.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Estábamos felices con el trabajo que nosotros teníamos allá porque teníamos de donde tomar un poco económicamente para mandarle a la familia y para que pudiéramos hacer algo, una casita o invertir en un negocio”, dijo, pero agregó que esto no justifica la manera en que él y sus compañeros fueron tratados. “Nos sentíamos mal con el maltrato que nos estaban dando y entonces empezamos a investigar sobre las cosas que [los empleadores] deben de hacer por ti”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "La visa H-2A permite que trabajadores agrícolas reciban empleo temporal en los Estados Unidos pero muchos inmigrantes en este programa sufren abusos laborales y hay pocas protecciones contra represalias por parte de empleadores y reclutadores.",
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"title": "Trabajar con una visa H-2A en EE.UU.: Las represalias que pueden enfrentar los trabajadores agrícolas que alzan la voz | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11918317/blacklisted-for-speaking-up-how-california-farmworkers-fighting-abuses-are-vulnerable-to-retaliation\">\u003cem>Read in English\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">U\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>n par de botas, unas camisas y unos pantalones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eso fue lo que Samuel dejó el pasado octubre en el cuarto que compartía con otros trabajadores del campo en Mauritson Farms, un viñedo en el Condado de Sonoma, el cual está ubicado en el corazón de la región vitivinícola de California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Él iba de regreso a su pueblo natal en el estado mexicano de Oaxaca. La cosecha de la uva había terminado y el plazo de su visa H-2A pronto terminaría. Había trabajado para Mauritson Farms desde el 2019 con una visa H-2A, \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/es/trabajar-en-estados-unidos/trabajadores-temporales-no-inmigrantes/trabajadores-agricolas-temporales-h-2a\">la cual otorga a trabajadores agrícolas de todo el mundo una estancia temporal en Estados Unidos\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El programa H-2A, lanzado en 1986, es el sucesor al programa Bracero, el cual operó desde 1942 hasta 1964, y permitió que decenas de miles de mexicanos trabajaran en granjas estadounidenses. Sin embargo, grupos laborales han criticado al programa Bracero \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers\">por no proteger a los trabajadores que sufrieron robo de salarios, maltrato físico y pésimas condiciones laborales y de vida\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con la visa H-2A, Samuel y otros muchachos provenientes de pueblos y comunidades rurales cerca del municipio de Sola de Vega en Oaxaca venían a California para trabajar de febrero a octubre en los campos de Mauritson Farms, los cuales producen la marca de vino Mauritson Wines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samuel dejó sus pertenencias en Healdsburg con planes para regresar en 2022. Pero Mauritson Farms nunca lo volvió a contratar.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cbr>\nA finales de la temporada de cosecha del 2021, Samuel y otros cinco trabajadores de Oaxaca manifestaron su oposición a lo que para ellos habían sido condiciones laborales injustas e inseguras durante los últimos tres años. Según ellos, tuvieron que trabajar en temperaturas extremadamente altas sin las protecciones adecuadas contra el calor, parte de su salario fue descontado sin ninguna razón y además experimentaron abuso verbal del encargado que los supervisaba.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Con el apoyo de North Bay Jobs With Justice, un grupo de derechos laborales en el Condado de Sonoma, los seis trabajadores se reunieron con el gerente del viñedo, Cameron Mauritson, el pasado mes de octubre para hablar sobre lo que estaba sucediendo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Se disculpó con nosotros, que él se sentía mal con lo que estaba pasando en su compañía”, dijo Kevin, uno de los trabajadores del campo que estaban presentes ese día. Kevin trabajó junto a Samuel durante esos tres años. “Él se comprometía a llevarnos otra vez para allá a trabajar”, agregó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para Samuel y Kevin (cuyos nombres verdaderos KQED no ha divulgado para protegerlos de posibles futuras represalias), esta promesa representaba mucho más que una oferta de trabajo para el siguiente año. Lo tomaron como una señal que podían expresarse libremente acerca de las condiciones laborales y que Mauritson no haría lo que más temían: tomar represalias contra ellos y nunca más contratarlos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dejamos nuestras cosas [en Mauritson Farms] creyendo que íbamos a regresar”, dijo Samuel, pero de esas promesas, dice, “no hay nada”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919456\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919456\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Unas viñas en un viñedo con uvas que ya han madurado y están listas para ser cosechadas.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Samuel y Kevin vinieron a California por primera vez en 2019 con visas H-2A y regresaban cada año hasta el 2021. Llegaban en febrero y se iban al final de la cosecha de uvas en octubre. Ahora esperan en Oaxaca por el fallo del ALRB. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>De los seis trabajadores que se reunieron con Mauritson en octubre, ninguno fue contratado de nuevo en 2022, pese a que presentaron sus solicitudes de trabajo con Cierto Global, la compañía externa de selección de personal. Tanto Samuel como Kevin creen que no fueron contratados otra vez porque se quejaron acerca de las condiciones laborales en los viñedos de Mauritson Farms. Sin embargo, lo que hicieron está dentro los derechos laborales y protección a los trabajadores en California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representantes de North Bay Jobs With Justice afirman que han intentado comunicarse con Mauritson varias veces desde febrero, sin recibir una respuesta. Además, Mauritson no aceptó la invitación de una entrevista con KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El 7 de febrero, North Bay Jobs With Justice presentó un cargo contra Mauritson Farms por parte de los seis trabajadores con el Consejo de Relaciones del Trabajo Agrícola de California (ALRB por sus siglas en inglés). El ALRB es la agencia estatal que investiga posibles abusos laborales en el sector agrícola. La denuncia \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/3.3.22-ULP-Against-Employer-Mauritson-Farms-Inc..pdf\">sostiene que Mauritson Farms discriminó contra los trabajadores\u003c/a> cuando esta compañía se negó a darles empleo luego de que estos formaron parte de una “actividad concertada”, o sea organizarse para pedir mejoras laborales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A medida que avanza la investigación del ALRB, Samuel y Kevin siguen buscando empleo en Oaxaca y en EE.UU., pero hay pocas oportunidades. Ya terminó la temporada para recibir una visa H-2A este año, entonces por ahora la única opción es buscar trabajo en México. Con pocos ahorros restantes y familias que mantener, se les está acabando el tiempo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Además de ser el estado con el sector agrícola más grande del país, California tiene la tercera parte de trabajadores extranjeros con una visa H-2A. El año pasado, \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22082364/h2a-statistics.pdf\">más de 32 mil obreros provenientes de todo el mundo llegaron a California con una visa H-2A\u003c/a> para trabajar en la industria agrícola. Y pese a que el estado ha desarrollado un sistema complejo de reglamentos y dependencias para proteger a estos trabajadores, los inmigrantes con visas H-2A siguen siendo extremadamente vulnerables a represalias ilegales por parte de sus empleadores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para contratar a trabajadores extranjeros, muchos empleadores usan una red de reclutadores externos que operan dentro y fuera del país. Trabajadores como Samuel y Kevin dependen de estos reclutadores para encontrar empleo en EE.UU. y navegar el proceso para recibir una visa H-2A.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, es común que estos reclutadores pongan en lista negra a empleados que denuncien un procedimiento laboral injusto, no sólo para un empleador, sino también para muchas empresas más en la industria agrícola. Para los trabajadores afectados, esto perjudica su futuro laboral en los EE.UU. y para funcionarios laborales estadounidenses, complica su tarea para hacer cumplir las leyes laborales que prohíben represalias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919454\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919454\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">El año pasado, más de 32 mil obreros provenientes de todo el mundo llegaron a California con una visa H-2A para trabajar en la industria agrícola. Pese a que estos trabajadores están protegidos por las mismas leyes laborales que cualquier otra persona, defensores laborales afirman que estos siguen siendo vulnerables a las represalias si denuncian prácticas laborales injustas o inseguras. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Es ilegal que los empleadores tomen represalias pero ‘aún así lo hacen’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Rice ha trabajado como abogada de derechos laborales por más de 20 años. Ahora es la directora de litigio, abogacía y entrenamiento en California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA, o en español, Asistencia Jurídica Rural de California) un despacho de abogados que ofrece ayuda legal. Rice ha representado a decenas de trabajadores del campo en casos que implican condiciones laborales peligrosas, robo de sueldos y represalias.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando habla con un cliente por primera vez, recalca lo siguiente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Es ilegal que un empleador tome represalias”, dijo, pero agregó que, “nunca decimos que un empleador no puede tomar represalias porque claro que pueden hacerlo. Sólo que es ilegal y aún así lo hacen”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gracias a décadas de activismo liderado por campesinos e inmigrantes, California cuenta con varias dependencias que hacen cumplir las leyes laborales, entre ellas los reglamentos que prohíben represalias. El ALRB fue creado luego de que el entonces gobernador Jerry Brown \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/196/2018/05/ALRA_Spanish_051805.pdf\">aprobara la Ley de Relaciones Laborales Agrícolas en 1975\u003c/a>, la cual garantiza el derecho de los trabajadores del campo a la negociación colectiva. A parte de eso, la \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/\">Oficina del Comisionado Laboral\u003c/a> investiga sueldos mal pagados o robados, y la Administración de Seguridad y Salud Ocupacional de California (Cal/OSHA por sus siglas en inglés) hace cumplir reglamentos estatales, \u003ca href=\"http://www.99calor.org/_downloads/complaint.sheet_spanish.pdf\">como las protecciones contra el calor para quienes trabajan al aire libre\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Nunca decimos que un empleador no puede tomar represalias porque claro que pueden hacerlo. Sólo que es ilegal y aún así lo hacen.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A nivel nacional, el Departamento de Trabajo procesa las órdenes de trabajo del programa H-2A y regula los contratos de trabajadores extranjeros. Dentro de esta dependencia, la \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd\">División de Salarios y Horas de Trabajo\u003c/a> investiga casos en donde compañías no están pagando a sus empleados adecuadamente o se niegan a ofrecer vivienda, transporte o comida, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">lo cual es requerido por el gobierno federal\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Muchos trabajadores agrícolas contactan a Rice después de que perdieron sus empleos o al final de la temporada de cosecha. “Ahí es cuando hablan sobre posible robo de sueldos, si no les dieron de comer o si su lugar de trabajo no tenía baños”, ella explicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero ese momento ya es muy tarde, dice ella, particularmente para los trabajadores con visa H-2A que tienen una estancia limitada en EE.UU. Esto limita el tiempo que abogados como Rice tienen para recaudar pruebas y testimonios antes de que el trabajador se vaya del país, lo cual complica el proceso aún más ya que muchos obreros vienen de comunidades rurales y aisladas en México, Centroamérica y el Caribe con muy poca conexión celular o internet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entonces, ¿por qué esperar hasta el último momento para alzar la voz?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hay varias maneras en que los trabajadores con visa H-2A pueden experimentar una represalia. Una es perder su trabajo (y al mismo tiempo sus visas), pero también pueden sufrir amenazas o castigos. Samuel recuerda que a su cuadrilla le tocó trabajar en los viñedos cuando las temperaturas superaban los 95 grados Fahrenheit (equivalente a 35 centígrados). “A veces nos sentíamos bien deshidratados que se desmayaba uno”. dijo. “Sentíamos que queríamos vomitar”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Cuando le avisaron al encargado cómo se sentían, Samuel afirma que este se rió y les dijo que siguieran trabajando. Kevin agregó que había varios días calurosos en que los trabajadores no recibieron ninguna protección, lo cual va en contra de leyes estatales. “Estaba el calor a 90, 95 grados y no había ninguna sombra para tomar un vaso de agua o sentarte a descansar un ratito. Nada de eso”, dijo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando el mercurio sube a los 80 grados Fahrenheit (equivalente a 26.7 centígrados), Cal/OSHA \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886628/feeling-the-heat-how-workers-can-advocate-for-safer-working-conditions-under-the-sun\">exige a los empleadores que proporcionen suficiente agua, sombra y descanso a sus trabajadores\u003c/a>. En términos prácticos, cada empleado debe recibir al menos un cuarto de galón de agua (equivalente a 950 mililitros) por hora y puede descansar en la sombra a cualquier momento que lo necesite. Sin embargo, una investigación de NPR en 2021 reveló que \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">más de 40 trabajadores agrícolas murieron en California por golpe de calor\u003c/a> y otras enfermedades relacionadas al calor dentro de un periodo de 10 años.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal/OSHA afirma que las muertes relacionadas al calor se pueden prevenir, pero esta dependencia ha lidiado con falta de personal suficiente por varios años, lo cual \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">limita su capacidad para regular las miles de granjas, campos y viñedos que operan a lo largo de California\u003c/a>. Por ende, la responsabilidad de proteger a los trabajadores del calor termina siendo la del empleador únicamente.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Una red de represalias en EE.UU. y el extranjero\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Según un reporte del Centro de los Derechos del Migrante publicado en 2020, \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tiempo-De-Reforma.pdf\">es bastante común que los empleadores en el programa H-2A usen amenazas para ejercer mayor control sobre sus trabajadores y prevenir que alcen la voz\u003c/a>. La organización entrevistó a 100 trabajadores que previamente formaron parte del programa H-2A y 100 por ciento de ellos experimentaron al menos una seria violacion legal de sus derechos y 94 por ciento de ellos, al menos tres violaciones a sus derechos laborales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice de CRLA señala que los empleadores en el programa H-2A tienen muchísimo control sobre sus trabajadores. Un empleador debe proveer \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">vivienda, comida, además de transporte de ida y vuelta del sitio de trabajo\u003c/a>. Además, muchos trabajadores no tienen su propio vehículo, ni una licencia para conducir y por ende dependen de sus jefes para hacer viajes esenciales como comprar comida o recibir atención médica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Un trabajador que experimenta malas condiciones de trabajo siempre puede irse de manera voluntaria, ¿verdad?” dijo Rice. “Bueno, eso no es cierto para los trabajadores con visa H-2A”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Este programa funciona de manera similar al trabajo no abonado que se vio por varias décadas después de la Guerra Civil de EE.UU, a través de la aparcería”, agregó la abogada. “El trabajador depende tanto del empleador que sería imposible decir que son libres para buscar otras oportunidades.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>La influencia de un empleador abusivo puede perjudicar a un trabajador incluso cuando este último ya haya regresado a su país natal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para contratar a nuevos trabajadores, muchos empleadores utilizan a reclutadores externos que operan por todo el mundo. El proceso para reclutar trabajadores está repleto de abusos. Los reclutadores a veces \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tiempo-De-Reforma.pdf\">cobran a trabajadores cantidades exorbitantes para conectarlos con compañías estadounidenses y otros mienten por completo acerca de las oportunidades laborales que pueden ofrecer\u003c/a>. Aún más, un reporte publicado en el 2015 por la Oficina de Contabilidad del Gobierno (GAO por sus siglas en inglés) señaló que estos reclutadores \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">ponen en la lista negra a cualquier empleado que denuncia un abuso por parte de su jefe\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Estos reclutadores, que van desde individuos operando de manera informal hasta multinacionales, generalmente trabajan para múltiples compañías agrícolas en EE.UU. Cuando un reclutador pone a un trabajador en la lista negra, esto va más allá de un solo empleador, sino que tiene repercusiones en sectores enteros de la industria agrícola.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice ha visto cómo esto sucede con varios de sus clientes. Luego de reportar a un empleador abusivo en un estado, estos trabajadores no pueden encontrar empleo en otros estados.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La primera cosa que un empleador hace después de que un trabajador se queja de su salario o condiciones laborales es llamar al reclutador para decirle, ‘No quiero contratar a esta persona el siguiente año porque se quejaron de mí’, y con eso, el trabajador ya no será contratado por esa compañía ni tampoco por todas las otras empresas que mantengan una conexión con ese reclutador”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Y cuando los trabajadores regresan a sus países de origen, todavía pueden ser perjudicados. El reporte de la GAO relata que cuando funcionarios estadounidenses viajaron a México para hablar con obreros que formaron parte del programa H-2A en el pasado, muchos de estos trabajadores tenían miedo de hablar. Según ellos, su preocupación era que alguien en su pueblo los viera y los reportara al reclutador que opera en esa zona.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Los reclutadores tienen una enorme cantidad de control sobre quién puede acceder a las visas dentro de estas comunidades.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>La Unión de Campesinos (UFW por sus siglas en inglés), sindicato que opera a nivel nacional, también ha notado este fenómeno. Elizabeth Strater, directora de campañas estratégicas de la UFW, explica cómo varios trabajadores con visa H-2A de origen jamaicano harán todo lo posible para aguantar a un empleador abusivo con el objetivo de permanecer en el grupo de solicitantes del siguiente año. “Los reclutadores tienen una enorme cantidad de control sobre quién puede acceder a las visas dentro de estas comunidades”, dijo Strater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cuando Mauritson Farms contrató por primera vez a su cuadrilla en 2019, Samuel y Kevin afirman que la compañía manejó el proceso para contratarlos a través de la aplicación WhatsApp y sin intermediarios. Pero en 2022, la empresa contrató a Cierto Global, una multinacional que se especializa en reclutar trabajadores agrícolas y hasta fue nombrada una “reclutadora ética” por el gobierno del presidente Joe Biden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero aún así, Samuel y Kevin se preocupan que ya no podrán encontrar trabajo en la industria agrícola de EE.UU. “Lo que yo pienso es que [Mauritson] ya no quieren tener más problemas y mejor metieron [el reclutador] para que escojan ahí mejor el que venga”, dijo Kevin.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Controlando a las redes de reclutadores\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>¿Cómo pueden los funcionarios laborales impedir que las empresas estadounidenses tomen represalias en contra los trabajadores con visa H-2A si esto sucede fuera del país?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>El reporte de la GAO indica que actualmente existe muy poca regulación federal sobre el proceso de reclutamiento para el programa H-2A. Pese a que el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional mantiene una extensa lista de todos los inmigrantes con visa H-2A, no existe una base de datos a nivel federal con la información de los individuos o empresas que llevan a cabo estas actividades por parte de empresas estadounidenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Nuestra autoridad para hacer cumplir la ley sólo existe en los Estados Unidos. No podemos regular lo que estos reclutadores externos están haciendo en México.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Agencias estatales como el ALRB de California, que actualmente investiga el caso Mauritson, también se les dificulta hacer cumplir sus propias reglas laborales en estas situaciones. Jessica Arciniega, directora regional para esta dependencia, dice que estos casos son bastantes complicados para su agencia ya que enfrentan limitaciones jurídicas, pero en ciertos casos, este tipo de represalia puede formar parte de una investigación en curso sobre un procedimiento laboral injusto.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si existe evidencia que un reclutador actuó como un agente del empleador, entonces eso puede ser algo que investiguemos”, dijo Arciniega.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A nivel federal, los funcionarios del Departamento del Trabajo también están limitados por su jurisdicción. “Nuestra autoridad para hacer cumplir la ley sólo existe en los Estados Unidos. No podemos regular lo que estos reclutadores externos están haciendo en México, por ejemplo”, dijo Rubén Lugo, coordinador regional de la agencia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sin embargo, si un grupo de trabajadores reporta un incumplimiento de contrato al Departamento de Trabajo por parte del empleador y el siguiente año ninguno de esos trabajadores es contratado nuevamente, “podemos ver claramente que estos trabajadores sufrieron una represalia”, dijo el funcionario.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>En este caso, el gobierno federal puede ordenar al empleador que recontrate a los trabajadores afectados. Y si también hubo robo de sueldos, los funcionarios pueden exigir a la empresa que le pague a los obreros todo lo que les debe. Compañías reincidentes hasta pueden ser removidos del programa H-2A de manera permanente.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero estas consecuencias sólo aplican a las empresas en Estados Unidos y no impactan a los reclutadores en el extranjero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>En el 2018, más del 90 por ciento de los trabajadores con visa H-2A provenían de México y según el \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">reporte de la GAO\u003c/a>, existe una red bastante desarrollada de reclutadores dentro de ese país. Grupos defensores de migrantes insisten que el gobierno mexicano, al igual que los gobiernos de otros países que abastecen trabajadores para este programa, debe ser más proactivo en regular las actividades de estos reclutadores y también educar a sus connacionales acerca de sus derechos laborales antes de viajar a EE.UU.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pero los funcionarios mexicanos que hablaron con KQED rechazaron esta idea y argumentan que esto no es la responsabilidad del gobierno mexicano, a pesar de que los mexicanos que trabajan en los campos de EE.UU. mandan millones de dólares cada año a México, lo cual sostiene gran parte de la economía de ese país.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Las visas H-2A no son un programa binacional”, dijo Remedios Gómez Arnau, cónsul general de México en San Francisco, y agregó que funcionarios mexicanos no tienen ningún papel en el proceso para contratar a los trabajadores del programa H-2A. El gobierno de México sólo se involucra cuando sus connacionales llegan a territorio estadounidense y se comunican con un consulado mexicano, explicó.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Si la persona sale de territorio nacional y entra a otro territorio a donde tiene una visa, entonces donde nos podemos enterar es aquí si el connacional o la connacional se acerca al consulado y nos dice que tienen un problema”, dijo la cónsul. “Pero antes de eso, las autoridades mexicanas desconocen quién está viniendo aquí siendo contratado”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919520\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919520\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg\" alt='Un grupo de manifestantes protesta fuera de una oficina y lleva muchos carteles. Uno de ellos lee. \"Pago extra por peligros\".' width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02464-1-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Los trabajadores agrícolas y los organizadores del grupo North Bay Jobs With Justice protestan en las afueras del Departamento de Gestión de Emergencias del Condado de Sonoma el 9 de junio de 2022. Una coalición de trabajadores y organizadores está presionando al condado para que se establezcan cinco normas de seguridad, con el próposito de proteger a los trabajadores del campo a medida que los incendios forestales se intensifican debido al cambio climático. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘La manera en que protegemos a los trabajadores debe de también cambiar’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Samuel y Kevin no se arrepienten de haber alzado la voz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nosotros nos sentimos en nuestro derecho”, dijo Samuel y agregó, “No sólo es uno [que se quejó], pero somos varios”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Para el equipo de North Bay Jobs With Justice, el cual ha apoyado a Samuel y a sus compañeros desde el año pasado, este caso podría ser un parteaguas en la lucha para proteger a los trabajadores del campo en la industria vitivinícola y el resto de California de represalias y procedimientos laborales injustos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Si la agencia estatal ALRB falla en contra de Mauritson, esto podría alentar a otros trabajadores en la región a denunciar más abusos, dice Ana Salgado, una de las líderes de North Bay Jobs With Justice. Algo así podría ampliar el movimiento a favor de protecciones laborales en el campo antes de que se intensifique la temporada de incendios en California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Varios grupos que defienden los derechos de trabajadores agrícolas han formado una coalición para exigir al Condado de Sonoma que establezca \u003ca href=\"https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/farmworkers-deserve-safety-and-respect-in-sonoma-county?source=ig\">cinco protocolos de seguridad a medida que los incendios forestales aumentan a causa del cambio climático\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Las cinco demandas incluyen que la industria del vino capacite a sus empleados, en su idioma materno, sobre cómo evacuar y mantenerse seguros durante un incendio forestal. También exigen que se permita la entrada en los viñedos a observadores comunitarios para que estos observen si se están acatando los reglamentos de seguridad laboral. De esta forma, los activistas esperan que ningún trabajador se sienta solo cuando denuncie a un empleador abusivo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“La Tierra está cambiando y la manera en que protegemos a los trabajadores debe de también cambiar”, dijo Salgado.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919524\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919524\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Un grupo de manifestantes toca los tambores afuera de una oficina.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/DSC02491-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Un grupo de manifestantes protesta a las afueras del Departamento de Gestión de Emergencias del Condado de Sonoma el 9 de junio de 2022 para exigir mayores protecciones para los trabajadores agrícolas antes del inicio de la temporada de incendios forestales. Los organizadores señalan que el cambio climático seguirá empeorarando las condiciones laborales en el campo. \u003ccite>(Cortesía de Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Más allá del Condado de Sonoma, activistas laborales proponen reformas estructurales al programa H-2A para hacer responsables tanto a empleadores como a reclutadores por las represalias que tomen. El Centro de los Derechos del Migrante \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Tiempo-De-Reforma.pdf\">ha recomendado al Congreso que apruebe legislación que reforme el proceso de reclutamiento y garantice asistencia legal a trabajadores que hayan sufrido un abuso laboral\u003c/a>, incluso cuando estos se hayan ido del país. También aconseja a dependencias federales como el Departamento de Trabajo que formen una base de datos accesible a cualquier trabajador extranjero y que incluya información de todos los reclutadores y empleadores que participan en el programa H-2A.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Por su parte, Cynthia Rice, la abogada de CRLA, señaló un vacío legal en las regulaciones del programa H-2A que castigan a empleadores abusivos: cuando un trabajador demanda a su empresa por un procedimiento laboral injusto, esta compañía puede llegar a un acuerdo legal con este trabajador y por ende evita admitir que violó una ley laboral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Al no aceptar cualquier responsabilidad por un delito, ese empleador puede entrar al programa H-2A otra vez el siguiente año”, dijo Rice. Si funcionarios federales tomarán en cuenta cuáles compañías llegan a acuerdos legales año tras año cuando están decidiendo qué empresas pueden formar parte del programa, eso podría prevenir que empleadores con una historia de abusos sigan contratando a más trabajadores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reformar el programa H-2A no sólo beneficiaría a obreros extranjeros, sino también protegería a trabajadores estadounidenses, dice Rice. Si es más fácil explotar a trabajadores con visa H-2A, esto los hace más atractivos para contratar ya que los empleadores saben que pueden explotar a estos sin tener que pagar las mismas consecuencias que cuando hacen lo mismo con estadounidenses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Nos sentíamos mal con el maltrato que nos estaban dando y entonces empezamos a investigar sobre las cosas que [los empleadores] deben de hacer por ti.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Mientras espera por el fallo del ALRB, Kevin comparte todo lo que aprendió el año pasado con sus compañeros que están considerando migrar a EE.UU. para trabajar. No quiere que otros pasen por lo mismo que le tocó a él.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Estábamos felices con el trabajo que nosotros teníamos allá porque teníamos de donde tomar un poco económicamente para mandarle a la familia y para que pudiéramos hacer algo, una casita o invertir en un negocio”, dijo, pero agregó que esto no justifica la manera en que él y sus compañeros fueron tratados. “Nos sentíamos mal con el maltrato que nos estaban dando y entonces empezamos a investigar sobre las cosas que [los empleadores] deben de hacer por ti”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 5 p.m. July 11: \u003c/strong>Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center staff moved Pedro Figueroa out of solitary confinement on July 8, shortly after KQED published this story, according to his attorney. Mohamed Mousa remains in what’s officially known as “administrative segregation,” his attorney said. Both men were found guilty of “inciting or engaging in a demonstration,” charges allegedly related to a monthslong labor strike by immigration detainees seeking higher wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman with The GEO Group, which operates the immigration detention center, declined to confirm the status of the men, and referred questions to ICE. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story, July 8:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTwo immigrant detainees have been held in solitary confinement for over a week for backing a labor strike seeking better wages and conditions at the privately run facility where they are held in Bakersfield, the men told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The alleged retaliation fuels fear and intimidation, according to interviews with the men, their attorneys and advocates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mohamed Mousa and Pedro Figueroa said they were moved to a restricted housing unit after signing a declaration on June 28 that they and 15 others were joining a months-long peaceful work stoppage by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees who are paid $1 a day to clean dormitories and bathrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Pedro Figueroa, ICE detainee\"]‘I chose not to work and voice my opinion respectfully, and that’s within my right … What did I do wrong?’[/pullquote]Employees with The GEO Group, a large private prison company that operates the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, transferred the men separately to “administrative segregation” on June 29 and June 30, according to GEO forms viewed by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is what they’re doing to retaliate against people who speak up. This is what they’re doing to intimidate us, which I am intimidated,” Figueroa, 33, said by phone as he sat in what he described as a small, windowless cell detainees refer to as “the hole.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I chose not to work and voice my opinion respectfully, and that’s within my right,” added Figueroa, a former incarcerated firefighter who battled the massive August Complex fire in 2020. “I’m trying to understand, what did I do wrong?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents show GEO staffers charged Figueroa and Mousa with “inciting or engaging in a demonstration” and “conduct that disrupts/interferes with the security or operation of the facility.” Both are \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention-standards/2011/pbnds2011r2016.pdf\">labeled as high offenses under ICE guidelines\u003c/a> for the detention center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa and Mousa said they are kept in their cells — about 6 by 12 feet, with a sink, toilet and a cot — for 22 hours a day or longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives you anxiety, raises your stress level. It raises your depression level,” said Mousa, a 41-year-old immigrant from Egypt and former film student in Los Angeles. “It’s a terrible place to be. It’s like they dig a grave and throw you in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Upon request, Mousa and Figueroa have access to a phone and an electronic tablet, which guards push through a slit in the room’s metal door. Calls and entertainment, such as music or books, may cost anywhere between $0.03 and $0.11 per minute, the detainees said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for GEO, \u003ca href=\"https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220502005931/en/The-GEO-Group-Reports-First-Quarter-2022-Results\">which reported total revenues of $551 million in the first quarter of 2022\u003c/a>, rebuffed allegations that the detainees are being punished for protesting their working and living conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strikers, including more than a dozen so-called “housing porters,” are calling for California’s $15 per hour minimum wage, fair treatment by Mesa Verde’s administration and more nutritious meals, among other demands. Some detainees at the facility have refused to work since April 28, but their demands have been largely ignored by GEO and ICE, said Esperanza Cuautle, a community organizer with Pangea Legal Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919181\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 648px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919181\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS57176_Pedro_Firecamp.jpeg\" alt=\"a smiling bald man holds a chainsaw wearing work clothing\" width=\"648\" height=\"1017\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS57176_Pedro_Firecamp.jpeg 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS57176_Pedro_Firecamp-160x251.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pedro Figueroa poses at the Antelope Fire camp in Siskiyou County in 2021. When he was incarcerated, before his ICE detention, Figueroa won a spot in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s fire camp program, and helped battle wildfires. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Figueroa family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The GEO spokesperson repeatedly denied a labor strike is taking place at Mesa Verde and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917597/immigrant-detainees-strike-over-working-conditions-california-regulators-investigate\">Golden State Annex, a nearby detention center also operated by the multinational company\u003c/a>, arguing that the detained workers are part of a voluntary program. But he declined to answer what demonstration or disruption the detainees were charged with engaging in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to strongly reject these baseless allegations,” said the spokesperson for the Florida-based company. “Our facilities, including the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center, provide high-quality services in accordance with all federal contract requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center is maintained in accordance with all applicable federal sanitation standards, with or without the contributions of Voluntary Work Program participants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mesa Verde currently detains 51 men, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/detain/detention-management\">ICE’s most recent detention statistics\u003c/a>. Figueroa and Mousa were arrested by the agency after being released from state prisons for felony convictions, according to court records and their attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa, however, felt no choice but to take a plea deal and continues to maintain his innocence, according to his lawyer, Katie Kavanagh, with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mousa entered the U.S. lawfully in 2006, and has since been granted protections against deportation by two separate immigration judges, but ICE has appealed, said Kelsey Morales, an immigration attorney with the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa, the father of four children born in the U.S., was brought to the country as a baby. He grew up in Orange County, according to Kavanagh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detainees often opt to work for $1 a day to help their families afford what they describe as costly phone calls and commissary items such as dental floss and tortillas — and to ensure clean living areas, which they say no other janitorial service maintains at Mesa Verde.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Eunice Cho, attorney, ACLU\"]‘These private prison companies are profiting by millions of dollars every year by using these volunteer work programs.’[/pullquote]In California, immigrant detainees paid $1 a day in privately run facilities are entitled to pursue civil remedy for unpaid wages, and are considered “employees” based on a ruling by a federal judge in 2018, said Christina Cano, a spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the enforcement of minimum wage laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, for-profit operators of immigration detention centers commonly use the voluntary work program to do cleaning, maintenance, laundry and other tasks that keep facilities running, saving money on labor costs, according to Eunice Cho, an attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, D.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These private prison companies are profiting by millions of dollars every year by using these volunteer work programs,” Cho said. “Private prison companies have often used punishment to ask for more people to perform labor, doing things like threatening and putting people into solitary confinement, denying food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Courts in California, Washington and other states are currently deciding whether these labor practices constitute illegal forced labor or minimum wage law violations, and whether companies like GEO are accountable, according to Cho.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11917597 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/GoldenStateAnnex-1020x698.jpg']Moreover, immigrants who are detained by the federal government while they fight deportation — a civil, not criminal proceeding — have the right to freedom of speech, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s long settled that the First Amendment prohibits the use of solitary confinement as punishment for speaking up against conditions of confinement in prisons and detention centers,” Cho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear whether ICE agrees. ICE did not return requests for comment on the rule, the labor strike or retaliation allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the reports of potentially exploitative work and retaliation at Mesa Verde are “alarming,” said a spokesperson for U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our office is working to gather additional information and ensure there is proper oversight,” she said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise, South Bay Congressmember Zoe Lofgren, D-San José, who chairs the Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, said she has “long been concerned” about immigration authorities’ use of for-profit prisons and conditions for detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These new allegations are troubling, yet sadly unsurprising,” said Lofgren, who \u003ca href=\"https://lofgren.house.gov/media/press-releases/lofgren-correa-ca-dems-urge-dhs-close-three-ice-detention-centers\">led 22 Democratic colleagues in urging the Biden administration to close three detention centers in California\u003c/a>, including one operated by GEO. “I take these allegations seriously and expect a complete and thorough investigation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Update, 5 p.m. July 11: \u003c/strong>Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center staff moved Pedro Figueroa out of solitary confinement on July 8, shortly after KQED published this story, according to his attorney. Mohamed Mousa remains in what’s officially known as “administrative segregation,” his attorney said. Both men were found guilty of “inciting or engaging in a demonstration,” charges allegedly related to a monthslong labor strike by immigration detainees seeking higher wages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman with The GEO Group, which operates the immigration detention center, declined to confirm the status of the men, and referred questions to ICE. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Original story, July 8:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nTwo immigrant detainees have been held in solitary confinement for over a week for backing a labor strike seeking better wages and conditions at the privately run facility where they are held in Bakersfield, the men told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The alleged retaliation fuels fear and intimidation, according to interviews with the men, their attorneys and advocates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mohamed Mousa and Pedro Figueroa said they were moved to a restricted housing unit after signing a declaration on June 28 that they and 15 others were joining a months-long peaceful work stoppage by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees who are paid $1 a day to clean dormitories and bathrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘I chose not to work and voice my opinion respectfully, and that’s within my right … What did I do wrong?’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Employees with The GEO Group, a large private prison company that operates the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, transferred the men separately to “administrative segregation” on June 29 and June 30, according to GEO forms viewed by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is what they’re doing to retaliate against people who speak up. This is what they’re doing to intimidate us, which I am intimidated,” Figueroa, 33, said by phone as he sat in what he described as a small, windowless cell detainees refer to as “the hole.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I chose not to work and voice my opinion respectfully, and that’s within my right,” added Figueroa, a former incarcerated firefighter who battled the massive August Complex fire in 2020. “I’m trying to understand, what did I do wrong?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents show GEO staffers charged Figueroa and Mousa with “inciting or engaging in a demonstration” and “conduct that disrupts/interferes with the security or operation of the facility.” Both are \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention-standards/2011/pbnds2011r2016.pdf\">labeled as high offenses under ICE guidelines\u003c/a> for the detention center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa and Mousa said they are kept in their cells — about 6 by 12 feet, with a sink, toilet and a cot — for 22 hours a day or longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It gives you anxiety, raises your stress level. It raises your depression level,” said Mousa, a 41-year-old immigrant from Egypt and former film student in Los Angeles. “It’s a terrible place to be. It’s like they dig a grave and throw you in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Upon request, Mousa and Figueroa have access to a phone and an electronic tablet, which guards push through a slit in the room’s metal door. Calls and entertainment, such as music or books, may cost anywhere between $0.03 and $0.11 per minute, the detainees said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for GEO, \u003ca href=\"https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220502005931/en/The-GEO-Group-Reports-First-Quarter-2022-Results\">which reported total revenues of $551 million in the first quarter of 2022\u003c/a>, rebuffed allegations that the detainees are being punished for protesting their working and living conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strikers, including more than a dozen so-called “housing porters,” are calling for California’s $15 per hour minimum wage, fair treatment by Mesa Verde’s administration and more nutritious meals, among other demands. Some detainees at the facility have refused to work since April 28, but their demands have been largely ignored by GEO and ICE, said Esperanza Cuautle, a community organizer with Pangea Legal Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11919181\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 648px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11919181\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS57176_Pedro_Firecamp.jpeg\" alt=\"a smiling bald man holds a chainsaw wearing work clothing\" width=\"648\" height=\"1017\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS57176_Pedro_Firecamp.jpeg 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/RS57176_Pedro_Firecamp-160x251.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pedro Figueroa poses at the Antelope Fire camp in Siskiyou County in 2021. When he was incarcerated, before his ICE detention, Figueroa won a spot in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s fire camp program, and helped battle wildfires. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the Figueroa family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The GEO spokesperson repeatedly denied a labor strike is taking place at Mesa Verde and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917597/immigrant-detainees-strike-over-working-conditions-california-regulators-investigate\">Golden State Annex, a nearby detention center also operated by the multinational company\u003c/a>, arguing that the detained workers are part of a voluntary program. But he declined to answer what demonstration or disruption the detainees were charged with engaging in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We continue to strongly reject these baseless allegations,” said the spokesperson for the Florida-based company. “Our facilities, including the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center, provide high-quality services in accordance with all federal contract requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center is maintained in accordance with all applicable federal sanitation standards, with or without the contributions of Voluntary Work Program participants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mesa Verde currently detains 51 men, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.ice.gov/detain/detention-management\">ICE’s most recent detention statistics\u003c/a>. Figueroa and Mousa were arrested by the agency after being released from state prisons for felony convictions, according to court records and their attorneys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa, however, felt no choice but to take a plea deal and continues to maintain his innocence, according to his lawyer, Katie Kavanagh, with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mousa entered the U.S. lawfully in 2006, and has since been granted protections against deportation by two separate immigration judges, but ICE has appealed, said Kelsey Morales, an immigration attorney with the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Figueroa, the father of four children born in the U.S., was brought to the country as a baby. He grew up in Orange County, according to Kavanagh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Detainees often opt to work for $1 a day to help their families afford what they describe as costly phone calls and commissary items such as dental floss and tortillas — and to ensure clean living areas, which they say no other janitorial service maintains at Mesa Verde.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In California, immigrant detainees paid $1 a day in privately run facilities are entitled to pursue civil remedy for unpaid wages, and are considered “employees” based on a ruling by a federal judge in 2018, said Christina Cano, a spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the enforcement of minimum wage laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationwide, for-profit operators of immigration detention centers commonly use the voluntary work program to do cleaning, maintenance, laundry and other tasks that keep facilities running, saving money on labor costs, according to Eunice Cho, an attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, D.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These private prison companies are profiting by millions of dollars every year by using these volunteer work programs,” Cho said. “Private prison companies have often used punishment to ask for more people to perform labor, doing things like threatening and putting people into solitary confinement, denying food.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Courts in California, Washington and other states are currently deciding whether these labor practices constitute illegal forced labor or minimum wage law violations, and whether companies like GEO are accountable, according to Cho.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Moreover, immigrants who are detained by the federal government while they fight deportation — a civil, not criminal proceeding — have the right to freedom of speech, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s long settled that the First Amendment prohibits the use of solitary confinement as punishment for speaking up against conditions of confinement in prisons and detention centers,” Cho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s unclear whether ICE agrees. ICE did not return requests for comment on the rule, the labor strike or retaliation allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the reports of potentially exploitative work and retaliation at Mesa Verde are “alarming,” said a spokesperson for U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our office is working to gather additional information and ensure there is proper oversight,” she said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise, South Bay Congressmember Zoe Lofgren, D-San José, who chairs the Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, said she has “long been concerned” about immigration authorities’ use of for-profit prisons and conditions for detainees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These new allegations are troubling, yet sadly unsurprising,” said Lofgren, who \u003ca href=\"https://lofgren.house.gov/media/press-releases/lofgren-correa-ca-dems-urge-dhs-close-three-ice-detention-centers\">led 22 Democratic colleagues in urging the Biden administration to close three detention centers in California\u003c/a>, including one operated by GEO. “I take these allegations seriously and expect a complete and thorough investigation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Although farm and food production workers were considered essential workers during the pandemic, many of California’s food employers endangered those workers, violating Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 guidelines more often than most industries, a new report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Institute for Rural Studies’ report said \u003ca href=\"https://cirsinc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FoodProductionEmployers_EnglishDataBrief.pdf\">farm and food production employers routinely failed\u003c/a> to provide workers with face masks, nor did they enforce physical distancing or notify workers when there were COVID outbreaks at worksites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study was based on OSHA inspections from April 2020 through December 2021.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Suzanne Adely, co-director, Food Chain Workers Alliance\"]‘Food workers have the lowest median wage than any workforce and are the most food insecure.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though farms and food companies had the most violations of all the industries, they had some of the smallest penalties, the report said; the average penalty was $22,473.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal/OSHA did not answer CalMatters’ question about the size of the fines. It issued a statement Wednesday saying, “Cal/OSHA recognizes and appreciates the importance of this issue, and is reviewing CIRS’ report and recommendations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dvera Saxton, a researcher with the rural studies institute, said Cal/OSHA cited food production employers four times more than any other California industry during the first year of the pandemic. But food companies utilized the judicial and appeals process to try to reduce their penalties, she said.[aside postID=\"news_11913643,news_11910083\" label=\"Related Post\"]“Oftentimes the fines will be reduced or eliminated,” she said. “We know that the food production employers — and the companies they’re producing for — have very powerful legal teams to reduce the fines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies’ violations often included failure to provide and implement a health and safety system, which is required by a 1991 state law, the study said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report describes food production workers as those working in meat packing, dairy operations and agriculture — primarily Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, and often undocumented immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Keeping workers safe\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Among 36 agricultural workplaces that utilized contractors, the report names Brutocao Vineyards. Cal/OSHA fined Brutocao Vineyards $3,710 in September 2020 for allegedly failing to provide face masks for three workers and neglecting to keep workers 6 feet apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Len Brutocao, director of vineyard operations, blamed the violations on the workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We provided the masks, and they just didn’t wear them,” he said in an interview, adding that the company has since increased training and stressed wearing masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s food and farm employers aren’t very different from similar employers around the country, said Suzanne Adely, co-director of the Los Angeles-based Food Chain Workers Alliance, a national coalition of food workers unions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 21.5 million farm and food workers make up the nation’s largest workforce, she said. The lack of COVID protections is just one of their many vulnerabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/04/california-farmworkers-drought/\">Food workers have the lowest median wage\u003c/a> than any workforce and are the most food insecure,” Adely said. “They have some of the highest rates of health and safety violations … and high rates of wage theft.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the pandemic continues, the report recommends that state leaders and Cal/OSHA officials strengthen paid sick leave protections, increase workplace inspections and ensure that employer health and safety data is more accessible to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Oftentimes the fines will be reduced or eliminated,” she said. “We know that the food production employers — and the companies they’re producing for — have very powerful legal teams to reduce the fines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies’ violations often included failure to provide and implement a health and safety system, which is required by a 1991 state law, the study said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report describes food production workers as those working in meat packing, dairy operations and agriculture — primarily Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, and often undocumented immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Keeping workers safe\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Among 36 agricultural workplaces that utilized contractors, the report names Brutocao Vineyards. Cal/OSHA fined Brutocao Vineyards $3,710 in September 2020 for allegedly failing to provide face masks for three workers and neglecting to keep workers 6 feet apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Len Brutocao, director of vineyard operations, blamed the violations on the workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We provided the masks, and they just didn’t wear them,” he said in an interview, adding that the company has since increased training and stressed wearing masks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s food and farm employers aren’t very different from similar employers around the country, said Suzanne Adely, co-director of the Los Angeles-based Food Chain Workers Alliance, a national coalition of food workers unions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 21.5 million farm and food workers make up the nation’s largest workforce, she said. The lack of COVID protections is just one of their many vulnerabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/04/california-farmworkers-drought/\">Food workers have the lowest median wage\u003c/a> than any workforce and are the most food insecure,” Adely said. “They have some of the highest rates of health and safety violations … and high rates of wage theft.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the pandemic continues, the report recommends that state leaders and Cal/OSHA officials strengthen paid sick leave protections, increase workplace inspections and ensure that employer health and safety data is more accessible to the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11919450/trabajar-con-una-visa-h-2a-en-estados-unidos-represalias-derechos\">\u003cem>Leer en español\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]A[/dropcap] pair of boots, shirts and pants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what Samuel left in the room he shared with other field workers at Mauritson Farms in Healdsburg, in the heart of Sonoma County’s wine country, last October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was heading back to his family in his hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico. The harvest had ended and his H-2A visa would soon expire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He started working at Mauritson Farms in 2019 with an H-2A visa, \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-2a-temporary-agricultural-workers\">which lets agricultural workers stay in the U.S. for limited periods of time\u003c/a>. The program was modeled off the Bracero Program, which was created in 1942, thanks to an agreement between the U.S. and Mexican governments that brought Mexican workers to American farms. Labor rights groups point out that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers\">many of those braceros experienced wage theft, physical abuse and terrible working and living conditions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through the H-2A program, Samuel and a group of other young men from towns and rural communities in and around the Sola de Vega district in Oaxaca have come to California for years — from February through October — to work at Mauritson Farms, which owns and controls the vineyards that produce Mauritson Wines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He left his belongings in Healdsburg with plans to come back in 2022. But he was never rehired by Mauritson Farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the 2021 growing season, Samuel and five other workers from Oaxaca spoke up against what \u003ca href=\"#workplace\">they believed to be unfair and unsafe working conditions they had experienced for the past three years\u003c/a>. They said they were asked to work on extremely hot days without adequate protections against the heat, that hours of their pay were docked for unjustified reasons and that they suffered verbal abuse from the foreman who supervised them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the support of the labor rights group North Bay Jobs With Justice, the group of six workers met with Cameron Mauritson, manager of the vineyard, in October to explain what they were experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He apologized to us and said he was really sorry that this had happened at his company,” said Kevin, who also was at the meeting and worked alongside Samuel for the same period of time. “He promised that he would hire us again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Samuel and Kevin — whose real names KQED is not using due to their fears of employment loss — this promise represented a lot more than a job offer for the next year. It signaled that the group could feel comfortable speaking out against unsafe working conditions and that Mauritson wouldn’t do what they feared the most: retaliate against them by not hiring them again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We left our things [at Mauritson Farms] believing we would come back,” Samuel said. “But none of it was true.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918388\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11918388 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A grapevine in a field. The grapes are ripe and ready to pick.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Samuel and Kevin started coming to California in 2019 with H-2A visas. They would come in February and leave at the end of the grape harvest season in October. They now wait in their hometowns in Oaxaca to hear what an ALRB investigation finds. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Out of the six workers who met with Mauritson in October, none was called back to work in 2022, despite their completion of an application with Cierto Global, the company’s third-party recruiter service. Both Samuel and Kevin believe they were not rehired because they told management about unsafe working conditions they were experiencing in Mauritson’s vineyards, a right protected by California labor standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>North Bay Jobs With Justice representatives said they have reached out to Mauritson several times since February without receiving a response. Mauritson also declined KQED’s request for an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On February 7, North Bay Jobs With Justice filed an unfair labor practice charge on behalf of the six workers with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), the state agency that investigates possible workplace abuses in the agricultural industry. The charge \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/3.3.22-ULP-Against-Employer-Mauritson-Farms-Inc..pdf\">states that Mauritson Farms discriminated against the workers\u003c/a> by “refusing to rehire them because they engaged in protected concerted activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the ALRB investigation moves forward, Samuel and Kevin spend their days taking on whatever work they can get in Oaxaca and looking for different farming jobs in the U.S., but with little luck. The window to receive an H-2A visa this year has closed, so they must look for jobs that don’t offer visas. With their remaining savings depleted and families to feed, time is running out to make enough money to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California, home to the country’s largest agriculture sector, also has the nation’s third-most H-2A workers. Last year, \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22082364/h2a-statistics.pdf\">more than 32,000 H-2A laborers from around the world worked in the state supporting the agriculture industry\u003c/a>. And even though California has an extensive system of agencies and regulations meant to protect these workers, H-2A immigrants are still extremely vulnerable to illegal retaliation by their employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To bring foreign workers to the U.S., many H-2A employers use a network of both formal and informal recruiters that operate both inside and outside the country. Workers like Samuel and Kevin depend on these recruiters to find jobs in the U.S. and navigate the visa application process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when a worker speaks up about illegal labor practices, advocates say these recruiters often make sure the worker is blacklisted across the industry — making it harder for these laborers to find another job in the U.S. and for agricultural industry and labor agencies, who only have jurisdiction in the U.S., to enforce anti-retaliation rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918390\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11918390\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Rows of grapevines in a field. In the background, a worker can be seen picking grapes.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than 4,200 laborers from around the world come to work in California with an H-2A visa. Most of them are employed in the agricultural industry. While these workers are protected by the same labor laws as anybody else, labor advocates say they are especially vulnerable to retaliation if they speak up against what they consider to be unfair or unsafe labor practices. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Employers do retaliate’ even though it’s illegal\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Rice has worked as a labor rights attorney for over 20 years. She’s now the director of litigation, advocacy and training at California Rural Legal Assistance, a nonprofit law firm that provides free legal aid across the state. She’s represented dozens of agricultural workers in cases involving dangerous working conditions, wage theft and retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the start of each conversation with a new client, she makes one point clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Retaliation is illegal,” she said, while adding that, “we never say the employer can’t retaliate against you because of course the employer can retaliate against you. It’s just illegal and employers do retaliate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks to decades of farmworker- and immigrant-led organizing, California has several agencies that enforce labor laws, including anti-retaliation rules. The ALRB was created after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/forms-publications/fact-sheets/fact-sheet-english/\">California Agricultural Labor Relations Act\u003c/a> in 1975, which guaranteed collective bargaining rights for farmworkers. Additionally, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/\">California Labor Commissioner’s Office\u003c/a> investigates underpaid or missing wages, and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/\">California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board\u003c/a> (Cal/OSHA) enforces workplace safety rules like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886628/feeling-the-heat-how-workers-can-advocate-for-safer-working-conditions-under-the-sun\">heat protections for outdoor workers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Cynthia Rice, director of litigation, advocacy and training, California Rural Legal Assistance\"]‘We never say the employer can’t retaliate against you because of course the employer can retaliate against you.’[/pullquote]At the federal level, the Department of Labor processes job orders for the H-2A program and enforces employment contracts and the federal laws meant to protect guest workers. The department’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd\">Wage and Hour Division\u003c/a> investigates cases where employers may not be paying their workers properly or failing to provide housing, transportation or meals, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">which is required by the federal government\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many immigrant farmworkers Rice has worked with come to her after they’ve been terminated or when they’re about to go back to their home countries after the harvest season. “Then they talk about the hours that were shaved or the meals and restrooms that they didn’t get,” she explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But waiting until the end of harvest season to file a claim with the ALRB or other labor agencies is usually too late, she said, particularly for H-2A workers who typically have to leave the U.S. soon after. It gives attorneys like Rice very limited time to collect evidence and testimony before the worker heads back to their home country, which usually complicates communication as many H-2A holders come from rural communities in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, with limited access to the internet and telephone reception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So why wait until the very last moment to speak up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Retaliation can mean losing your job (and with that, your H-2A visa) after speaking up, but it can also include intimidation or punishment. Samuel remembers when his crew was working the fields in temperatures exceeding 95 degrees. “There were times where we felt so dehydrated that we were going to pass out,” he said. “We felt we wanted to vomit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11886628\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/RS50596_019_SanFrancisco_HeatWaveImpacts_08062021-qut-1020x680.jpg\"]\u003ca id=\"workplace\">\u003c/a>When he’d tell the foreman how he and others were feeling, Samuel said the foreman would laugh at them and tell them to keep working. Kevin said that there were many hot days where the workers didn’t have any of the heat protections required by California law. “When it was 90, 95 degrees, we didn’t have any shady spots to have a glass of water or rest for a bit,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When outside temperatures exceed 80 degrees, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886628/feeling-the-heat-how-workers-can-advocate-for-safer-working-conditions-under-the-sun\">Cal/OSHA requires employers to provide their workers with sufficient water, shade and rest\u003c/a>. That means each employee should be able to drink at least one quart of water per hour and request breaks in the shade whenever they feel the need to. But a 2021 NPR investigation found that even with these protections in place, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">nearly four dozen California workers died from heatstroke\u003c/a> and other heat-related illnesses within a 10-year period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal/OSHA has stated that heat-related deaths can be prevented, but the agency has struggled with understaffing for years, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">making it harder for it to enforce its rules across California’s thousands of farms\u003c/a>. So in many cases, the responsibility of protecting workers from heat falls solely on the employer.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A network of retaliation in the US — and abroad\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A 2020 report by the migrant rights group Centro de los Derechos del Migrante \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Ripe-for-Reform.pdf\">shows that it’s common for H-2A employers nationwide to intimidate workers to exert greater control over them\u003c/a> and prevent them from feeling safe enough to speak up while they’re employed. Out of 100 former H-2A workers the organization spoke to, 100% of them experienced at least one serious legal violation and 94% experienced three or more serious legal violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice from CRLA points out that H-2A employers have an incredible amount of control over workers. An employer \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">must provide housing, meals and transportation to and from the work site\u003c/a>. Because many workers don’t have a U.S. driver’s license or their own vehicle, they also depend on their bosses for transportation to go grocery shopping, to receive medical care and for other essential activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A worker who is experiencing bad working conditions can always vote with his or her feet, right?” Rice said. “Well, that’s not true for H-2A workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11886402\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/08/DSCF1773-1020x680.jpg\"]“The program is really closer to a kind of indentured servitude that we had in prior decades under sharecropper relationships post-emancipation,” she added. “There is such a dependency that the worker has on the employer and you can’t really say that they’re free to engage in activity anywhere else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abusive employers can exert control over workers even when they are no longer living in the U.S. In order to find employees, many H-2A employers depend on third-party recruiters that operate all over the world. The recruitment process is rife with abuse, as some recruiters charge workers exorbitant amounts to connect them with American companies, \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Ripe-for-Reform.pdf\">some practice debt bondage and others mislead workers entirely about job opportunities\u003c/a>. Additionally, a 2015 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">found that recruiters often blacklist any worker who speaks up about abuses to their employer\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These recruiters, which range from informal one-person operations to multinational corporations, usually work for several employers spread out across the U.S. So when recruiters blacklist a worker, they’re not just doing so for one employer but potentially for whole sectors of the agriculture industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice has seen this happen several times with clients who spoke up about an employer in one state, only to later have trouble finding a job in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first thing that the employer does once a worker has complained about wages or working conditions,” she said, “is go back to the recruiter and say, ‘I don’t want to hire this guy next year because they complained about me,’ and that affects not only recruitment for that particular employer, but also for all of the employers that a recruiter has a relationship with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even when workers have returned to their countries of origin, the possibility of being blacklisted still exists. In the \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">2015 GAO report\u003c/a>, federal officials traveled to Mexico to talk to former H-2A workers and noted that laborers were concerned about being seen talking to U.S. investigators in their hometowns because “people walking by could possibly see and report them to the local recruiter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns, United Farm Workers\"]‘There is a tremendous amount of control over access to those [H-2A] visas [exerted by recruiters] within the communities of origin.’[/pullquote]The United Farm Workers union, which operates nationwide, also has noticed this phenomenon. Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns with the UFW, said many Jamaican H-2A workers in the U.S. will stick it out with a bad employer for a whole year just to stay within the recruitment pool for the next year. “There is also a tremendous amount of control over access to those visas [exerted by recruiters] within the communities of origin,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Mauritson Farms first hired their crew in 2019, Samuel and Kevin say that the company arranged the recruitment process directly, using WhatsApp to coordinate. But in 2022, the vineyard switched to using a third-party recruiter, Cierto Global, a multinational farm labor contractor that was dubbed an “ethical recruiter” by the Biden administration earlier this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Samuel and Kevin still worry that they now will have a much harder time finding a job in agriculture in the U.S. “I think [Mauritson] didn’t want any more problems to come up for them anymore,” Kevin said, “so they brought on the recruiter to be more selective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Regulating the recruiter network\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>How can labor officials prevent retaliation by American companies against H-2A workers if it happens outside the U.S.?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report points out that because recruitment happens outside the U.S., there’s very little federal oversight. Although the Department of Homeland Security keeps track of every incoming H-2A immigrant, there’s no federal database that tracks which agents are recruiting them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Ruben Lugo, regional enforcement coordinator, Department of Labor\"]‘Our enforcement authority is just in the United States. We can’t regulate what these third-party recruiters are doing.’[/pullquote]State agencies like California’s ALRB, which is currently investigating the Mauritson case, also have a hard time enforcing anti-retaliation laws in these situations. Regional director Jessica Arciniega shared that these types of situations are difficult for her agency due to jurisdictional limitations, but in certain cases, this sort of retaliation can fit into an ongoing unfair labor practice investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If there is evidence that the recruiter was an agent of the employer, then it may be part of something that we investigate,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the federal level, Department of Labor officials are constrained by their jurisdiction. “Our enforcement authority is just in the United States. We can’t regulate what these third-party recruiters are doing, let’s just say, in Mexico,” said Ruben Lugo, regional enforcement coordinator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Lugo explains, if a group of workers reported a breach of contract to the Department of Labor by their employer, and the following year none of the workers who were cooperating with the investigation were rehired, “then we can clearly discern that these workers were retaliated [against].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this situation, the federal government can order the employer to rehire the affected workers. In cases involving wage theft, officials also can require companies to pay back what they owe workers, along with civil penalties. For repeat offenders, authorities can even remove an employer from the H-2A program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But at the end of the day, these consequences apply only for agriculture companies in the U.S., not recruiters abroad. In 2018, over 90% of H-2A workers were from Mexico and the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">2018 GOA report\u003c/a> shows that the recruiter network operates extensively throughout that country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More Labor Coverage' tag='labor-rights']Migrant worker advocates argue that the Mexican government, along with the governments of other countries H-2A immigrants travel from, should be more proactive about regulating the activities of these recruiters and educating workers on what their labor rights are before they leave for the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Mexican officials KQED spoke to pushed back, arguing that isn’t the responsibility of the Mexican government — despite millions of dollars flowing back to Mexico each year as remittances from Mexican nationals working for the U.S. agriculture industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“H-2A visas are not part of a binational program,” said Remedios Gómez Arnau, consul general of Mexico in San Francisco. The Mexican government has no part in the hiring process and only plays a role through its consular system once Mexican nationals are in American territory, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once somebody leaves Mexico and enters another country using a visa, then that’s when we can figure out here if the national approaches a consulate and tells us what their issue is,” she said. “But before that, Mexican authorities don’t know who is being hired by who.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918371\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11918371 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg\" alt='A group of people protest outside an office building. Many are holding signs, one says in Spanish, \"Pago extra por peligros\" or \"hazard pay\" in English.' width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmworkers and organizers with the labor rights group North Bay Jobs With Justice picket outside the Department of Emergency Management of Sonoma County on June 9, 2022. A coalition of workers and organizers have pushed Sonoma County officials for months to put into place five safety standards, meant to protect workers as wildfires intensify due to climate change, including hazard pay for farm laborers who work in wildfire evacuation zones. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘The way we protect workers must change’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Samuel and Kevin don’t regret speaking up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re acting within our rights,” Samuel said. “It’s not just one worker who spoke up but many.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the team at North Bay Jobs With Justice who have been working with this group of workers since last year, this case could set a precedent for the fight to protect farmworkers in wine country and the rest of California against retaliation and unsafe labor practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the ALRB finds that Mauritson did retaliate against its workers, that could encourage other workers across the region to report their own experiences to labor officials, said Ana Salgado, community co-chair of the NBJWJ board. That could potentially fuel the movement for greater worker protections ahead of wildfire season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A coalition of worker advocacy groups, including NBJWJ, \u003ca href=\"https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/farmworkers-deserve-safety-and-respect-in-sonoma-county?source=ig\">have pushed Sonoma County officials for months to put into place five safety standards\u003c/a> meant to protect workers as wildfires intensify due to climate change. These include providing safety and fire evacuation training in the workers’ first languages, including Indigenous languages, and allowing independent community observers to assess the safety of workers out in the field, so that workers are not alone when they report unsafe conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Earth is changing, and the way we protect workers must change as well,” said Salgado in Spanish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918370\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11918370 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"A group of people play the drums outside of an office building.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Protesters gathered outside the Department of Emergency Management of Sonoma County on June 9, 2022, to demand greater protections for farmworkers before the onset of wildfire season. Organizers point out that climate change will only worsen in the coming years and insist that officials expand labor regulations to better protect workers as global temperatures increase. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beyond Sonoma County, migrant rights advocates also are proposing structural reforms to the H-2A program to hold both employers and recruiters accountable for retaliation. Centro de los Derechos del Migrante has recommended that Congress approve legislation that reforms the recruitment process and ensures that workers who have suffered a labor rights violation in the U.S. can still access legal services once they’ve left the country. They’re also encouraging federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, to create a database accessible to workers that keeps track of H-2A employers and their recruiters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Ana Salgado, community co-chair, North Bay Jobs With Justice\"]‘The Earth is changing, and the way we protect workers must change as well.’[/pullquote]Cynthia Rice, attorney with the CRLA, points out a loophole in the existing accountability mechanism for H-2A employers: When a worker sues their company for an illegal labor practice, that company can settle the lawsuit and avoid admitting they violated labor law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because there has not been any admission of liability or wrongdoing, that employer can get another H-2A order the next year,” Rice said. If federal officials took into consideration which companies are settling lawsuits year after year when it decides which ones get to stay in the H-2A program, it could prevent employers who don’t protect their workers from staying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reforming the program isn’t just necessary to better protect H-2A workers, Rice said, but also would benefit American workers. When H-2A workers are more vulnerable to retaliation, that makes them more attractive to hire, since employers know they can exploit them without having to fear the same consequences they’d face in hiring Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Kevin, former H-2A worker\"]‘We felt awful with the abuse we received, so we set out to learn what the employer actually needs to do.’[/pullquote]While he waits to hear the ALRB’s decision, Kevin has been sharing everything he’s learned in the past year with friends who are considering working in the U.S. He doesn’t want others to go through the same things he did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were happy with the job we had over there because it gave us the economic means to send money back to our families and save for a home or a business,” he said. But he added that doesn’t justify how he was treated: “We felt awful with the abuse we received, so we set out to learn what the employer actually needs to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "What's it like for immigrant farmworkers to report an unfair labor practice? Advocates say laborers with H-2A visas are vulnerable to retaliation not just from their employers but from recruiters that connect them to jobs in the future.",
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"title": "Blacklisted for Speaking Up: How California Farmworkers Fighting Abuses Are Vulnerable to Retaliation | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11919450/trabajar-con-una-visa-h-2a-en-estados-unidos-represalias-derechos\">\u003cem>Leer en español\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">A\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp> pair of boots, shirts and pants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s what Samuel left in the room he shared with other field workers at Mauritson Farms in Healdsburg, in the heart of Sonoma County’s wine country, last October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was heading back to his family in his hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico. The harvest had ended and his H-2A visa would soon expire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He started working at Mauritson Farms in 2019 with an H-2A visa, \u003ca href=\"https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-2a-temporary-agricultural-workers\">which lets agricultural workers stay in the U.S. for limited periods of time\u003c/a>. The program was modeled off the Bracero Program, which was created in 1942, thanks to an agreement between the U.S. and Mexican governments that brought Mexican workers to American farms. Labor rights groups point out that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers\">many of those braceros experienced wage theft, physical abuse and terrible working and living conditions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through the H-2A program, Samuel and a group of other young men from towns and rural communities in and around the Sola de Vega district in Oaxaca have come to California for years — from February through October — to work at Mauritson Farms, which owns and controls the vineyards that produce Mauritson Wines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He left his belongings in Healdsburg with plans to come back in 2022. But he was never rehired by Mauritson Farms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the 2021 growing season, Samuel and five other workers from Oaxaca spoke up against what \u003ca href=\"#workplace\">they believed to be unfair and unsafe working conditions they had experienced for the past three years\u003c/a>. They said they were asked to work on extremely hot days without adequate protections against the heat, that hours of their pay were docked for unjustified reasons and that they suffered verbal abuse from the foreman who supervised them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the support of the labor rights group North Bay Jobs With Justice, the group of six workers met with Cameron Mauritson, manager of the vineyard, in October to explain what they were experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He apologized to us and said he was really sorry that this had happened at his company,” said Kevin, who also was at the meeting and worked alongside Samuel for the same period of time. “He promised that he would hire us again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Samuel and Kevin — whose real names KQED is not using due to their fears of employment loss — this promise represented a lot more than a job offer for the next year. It signaled that the group could feel comfortable speaking out against unsafe working conditions and that Mauritson wouldn’t do what they feared the most: retaliate against them by not hiring them again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We left our things [at Mauritson Farms] believing we would come back,” Samuel said. “But none of it was true.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918388\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11918388 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A grapevine in a field. The grapes are ripe and ready to pick.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45142_017_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Samuel and Kevin started coming to California in 2019 with H-2A visas. They would come in February and leave at the end of the grape harvest season in October. They now wait in their hometowns in Oaxaca to hear what an ALRB investigation finds. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Out of the six workers who met with Mauritson in October, none was called back to work in 2022, despite their completion of an application with Cierto Global, the company’s third-party recruiter service. Both Samuel and Kevin believe they were not rehired because they told management about unsafe working conditions they were experiencing in Mauritson’s vineyards, a right protected by California labor standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>North Bay Jobs With Justice representatives said they have reached out to Mauritson several times since February without receiving a response. Mauritson also declined KQED’s request for an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On February 7, North Bay Jobs With Justice filed an unfair labor practice charge on behalf of the six workers with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), the state agency that investigates possible workplace abuses in the agricultural industry. The charge \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/3.3.22-ULP-Against-Employer-Mauritson-Farms-Inc..pdf\">states that Mauritson Farms discriminated against the workers\u003c/a> by “refusing to rehire them because they engaged in protected concerted activity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the ALRB investigation moves forward, Samuel and Kevin spend their days taking on whatever work they can get in Oaxaca and looking for different farming jobs in the U.S., but with little luck. The window to receive an H-2A visa this year has closed, so they must look for jobs that don’t offer visas. With their remaining savings depleted and families to feed, time is running out to make enough money to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California, home to the country’s largest agriculture sector, also has the nation’s third-most H-2A workers. Last year, \u003ca href=\"https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22082364/h2a-statistics.pdf\">more than 32,000 H-2A laborers from around the world worked in the state supporting the agriculture industry\u003c/a>. And even though California has an extensive system of agencies and regulations meant to protect these workers, H-2A immigrants are still extremely vulnerable to illegal retaliation by their employers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To bring foreign workers to the U.S., many H-2A employers use a network of both formal and informal recruiters that operate both inside and outside the country. Workers like Samuel and Kevin depend on these recruiters to find jobs in the U.S. and navigate the visa application process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when a worker speaks up about illegal labor practices, advocates say these recruiters often make sure the worker is blacklisted across the industry — making it harder for these laborers to find another job in the U.S. and for agricultural industry and labor agencies, who only have jurisdiction in the U.S., to enforce anti-retaliation rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918390\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11918390\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Rows of grapevines in a field. In the background, a worker can be seen picking grapes.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/RS45137_011_KQED_Napa_VineyardFarmWorkers_09302020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">More than 4,200 laborers from around the world come to work in California with an H-2A visa. Most of them are employed in the agricultural industry. While these workers are protected by the same labor laws as anybody else, labor advocates say they are especially vulnerable to retaliation if they speak up against what they consider to be unfair or unsafe labor practices. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘Employers do retaliate’ even though it’s illegal\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Cynthia Rice has worked as a labor rights attorney for over 20 years. She’s now the director of litigation, advocacy and training at California Rural Legal Assistance, a nonprofit law firm that provides free legal aid across the state. She’s represented dozens of agricultural workers in cases involving dangerous working conditions, wage theft and retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the start of each conversation with a new client, she makes one point clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Retaliation is illegal,” she said, while adding that, “we never say the employer can’t retaliate against you because of course the employer can retaliate against you. It’s just illegal and employers do retaliate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks to decades of farmworker- and immigrant-led organizing, California has several agencies that enforce labor laws, including anti-retaliation rules. The ALRB was created after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.alrb.ca.gov/forms-publications/fact-sheets/fact-sheet-english/\">California Agricultural Labor Relations Act\u003c/a> in 1975, which guaranteed collective bargaining rights for farmworkers. Additionally, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/\">California Labor Commissioner’s Office\u003c/a> investigates underpaid or missing wages, and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/\">California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board\u003c/a> (Cal/OSHA) enforces workplace safety rules like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886628/feeling-the-heat-how-workers-can-advocate-for-safer-working-conditions-under-the-sun\">heat protections for outdoor workers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We never say the employer can’t retaliate against you because of course the employer can retaliate against you.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>At the federal level, the Department of Labor processes job orders for the H-2A program and enforces employment contracts and the federal laws meant to protect guest workers. The department’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd\">Wage and Hour Division\u003c/a> investigates cases where employers may not be paying their workers properly or failing to provide housing, transportation or meals, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">which is required by the federal government\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many immigrant farmworkers Rice has worked with come to her after they’ve been terminated or when they’re about to go back to their home countries after the harvest season. “Then they talk about the hours that were shaved or the meals and restrooms that they didn’t get,” she explained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But waiting until the end of harvest season to file a claim with the ALRB or other labor agencies is usually too late, she said, particularly for H-2A workers who typically have to leave the U.S. soon after. It gives attorneys like Rice very limited time to collect evidence and testimony before the worker heads back to their home country, which usually complicates communication as many H-2A holders come from rural communities in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, with limited access to the internet and telephone reception.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So why wait until the very last moment to speak up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Retaliation can mean losing your job (and with that, your H-2A visa) after speaking up, but it can also include intimidation or punishment. Samuel remembers when his crew was working the fields in temperatures exceeding 95 degrees. “There were times where we felt so dehydrated that we were going to pass out,” he said. “We felt we wanted to vomit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ca id=\"workplace\">\u003c/a>When he’d tell the foreman how he and others were feeling, Samuel said the foreman would laugh at them and tell them to keep working. Kevin said that there were many hot days where the workers didn’t have any of the heat protections required by California law. “When it was 90, 95 degrees, we didn’t have any shady spots to have a glass of water or rest for a bit,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When outside temperatures exceed 80 degrees, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886628/feeling-the-heat-how-workers-can-advocate-for-safer-working-conditions-under-the-sun\">Cal/OSHA requires employers to provide their workers with sufficient water, shade and rest\u003c/a>. That means each employee should be able to drink at least one quart of water per hour and request breaks in the shade whenever they feel the need to. But a 2021 NPR investigation found that even with these protections in place, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">nearly four dozen California workers died from heatstroke\u003c/a> and other heat-related illnesses within a 10-year period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cal/OSHA has stated that heat-related deaths can be prevented, but the agency has struggled with understaffing for years, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11886402/why-california-workers-are-still-dying-from-heat-despite-protections\">making it harder for it to enforce its rules across California’s thousands of farms\u003c/a>. So in many cases, the responsibility of protecting workers from heat falls solely on the employer.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A network of retaliation in the US — and abroad\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A 2020 report by the migrant rights group Centro de los Derechos del Migrante \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Ripe-for-Reform.pdf\">shows that it’s common for H-2A employers nationwide to intimidate workers to exert greater control over them\u003c/a> and prevent them from feeling safe enough to speak up while they’re employed. Out of 100 former H-2A workers the organization spoke to, 100% of them experienced at least one serious legal violation and 94% experienced three or more serious legal violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice from CRLA points out that H-2A employers have an incredible amount of control over workers. An employer \u003ca href=\"https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/whdfs26.pdf\">must provide housing, meals and transportation to and from the work site\u003c/a>. Because many workers don’t have a U.S. driver’s license or their own vehicle, they also depend on their bosses for transportation to go grocery shopping, to receive medical care and for other essential activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A worker who is experiencing bad working conditions can always vote with his or her feet, right?” Rice said. “Well, that’s not true for H-2A workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The program is really closer to a kind of indentured servitude that we had in prior decades under sharecropper relationships post-emancipation,” she added. “There is such a dependency that the worker has on the employer and you can’t really say that they’re free to engage in activity anywhere else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Abusive employers can exert control over workers even when they are no longer living in the U.S. In order to find employees, many H-2A employers depend on third-party recruiters that operate all over the world. The recruitment process is rife with abuse, as some recruiters charge workers exorbitant amounts to connect them with American companies, \u003ca href=\"https://cdmigrante.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Ripe-for-Reform.pdf\">some practice debt bondage and others mislead workers entirely about job opportunities\u003c/a>. Additionally, a 2015 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">found that recruiters often blacklist any worker who speaks up about abuses to their employer\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These recruiters, which range from informal one-person operations to multinational corporations, usually work for several employers spread out across the U.S. So when recruiters blacklist a worker, they’re not just doing so for one employer but potentially for whole sectors of the agriculture industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rice has seen this happen several times with clients who spoke up about an employer in one state, only to later have trouble finding a job in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first thing that the employer does once a worker has complained about wages or working conditions,” she said, “is go back to the recruiter and say, ‘I don’t want to hire this guy next year because they complained about me,’ and that affects not only recruitment for that particular employer, but also for all of the employers that a recruiter has a relationship with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even when workers have returned to their countries of origin, the possibility of being blacklisted still exists. In the \u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">2015 GAO report\u003c/a>, federal officials traveled to Mexico to talk to former H-2A workers and noted that laborers were concerned about being seen talking to U.S. investigators in their hometowns because “people walking by could possibly see and report them to the local recruiter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘There is a tremendous amount of control over access to those [H-2A] visas [exerted by recruiters] within the communities of origin.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The United Farm Workers union, which operates nationwide, also has noticed this phenomenon. Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns with the UFW, said many Jamaican H-2A workers in the U.S. will stick it out with a bad employer for a whole year just to stay within the recruitment pool for the next year. “There is also a tremendous amount of control over access to those visas [exerted by recruiters] within the communities of origin,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Mauritson Farms first hired their crew in 2019, Samuel and Kevin say that the company arranged the recruitment process directly, using WhatsApp to coordinate. But in 2022, the vineyard switched to using a third-party recruiter, Cierto Global, a multinational farm labor contractor that was dubbed an “ethical recruiter” by the Biden administration earlier this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Samuel and Kevin still worry that they now will have a much harder time finding a job in agriculture in the U.S. “I think [Mauritson] didn’t want any more problems to come up for them anymore,” Kevin said, “so they brought on the recruiter to be more selective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Regulating the recruiter network\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>How can labor officials prevent retaliation by American companies against H-2A workers if it happens outside the U.S.?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report points out that because recruitment happens outside the U.S., there’s very little federal oversight. Although the Department of Homeland Security keeps track of every incoming H-2A immigrant, there’s no federal database that tracks which agents are recruiting them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Our enforcement authority is just in the United States. We can’t regulate what these third-party recruiters are doing.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>State agencies like California’s ALRB, which is currently investigating the Mauritson case, also have a hard time enforcing anti-retaliation laws in these situations. Regional director Jessica Arciniega shared that these types of situations are difficult for her agency due to jurisdictional limitations, but in certain cases, this sort of retaliation can fit into an ongoing unfair labor practice investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If there is evidence that the recruiter was an agent of the employer, then it may be part of something that we investigate,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the federal level, Department of Labor officials are constrained by their jurisdiction. “Our enforcement authority is just in the United States. We can’t regulate what these third-party recruiters are doing, let’s just say, in Mexico,” said Ruben Lugo, regional enforcement coordinator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Lugo explains, if a group of workers reported a breach of contract to the Department of Labor by their employer, and the following year none of the workers who were cooperating with the investigation were rehired, “then we can clearly discern that these workers were retaliated [against].”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this situation, the federal government can order the employer to rehire the affected workers. In cases involving wage theft, officials also can require companies to pay back what they owe workers, along with civil penalties. For repeat offenders, authorities can even remove an employer from the H-2A program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But at the end of the day, these consequences apply only for agriculture companies in the U.S., not recruiters abroad. In 2018, over 90% of H-2A workers were from Mexico and the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/gao-2015-report-on-h2a-program-668875.pdf\">2018 GOA report\u003c/a> shows that the recruiter network operates extensively throughout that country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Migrant worker advocates argue that the Mexican government, along with the governments of other countries H-2A immigrants travel from, should be more proactive about regulating the activities of these recruiters and educating workers on what their labor rights are before they leave for the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Mexican officials KQED spoke to pushed back, arguing that isn’t the responsibility of the Mexican government — despite millions of dollars flowing back to Mexico each year as remittances from Mexican nationals working for the U.S. agriculture industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“H-2A visas are not part of a binational program,” said Remedios Gómez Arnau, consul general of Mexico in San Francisco. The Mexican government has no part in the hiring process and only plays a role through its consular system once Mexican nationals are in American territory, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once somebody leaves Mexico and enters another country using a visa, then that’s when we can figure out here if the national approaches a consulate and tells us what their issue is,” she said. “But before that, Mexican authorities don’t know who is being hired by who.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918371\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11918371 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg\" alt='A group of people protest outside an office building. Many are holding signs, one says in Spanish, \"Pago extra por peligros\" or \"hazard pay\" in English.' width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02464-1-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Farmworkers and organizers with the labor rights group North Bay Jobs With Justice picket outside the Department of Emergency Management of Sonoma County on June 9, 2022. A coalition of workers and organizers have pushed Sonoma County officials for months to put into place five safety standards, meant to protect workers as wildfires intensify due to climate change, including hazard pay for farm laborers who work in wildfire evacuation zones. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>‘The way we protect workers must change’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Samuel and Kevin don’t regret speaking up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re acting within our rights,” Samuel said. “It’s not just one worker who spoke up but many.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the team at North Bay Jobs With Justice who have been working with this group of workers since last year, this case could set a precedent for the fight to protect farmworkers in wine country and the rest of California against retaliation and unsafe labor practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the ALRB finds that Mauritson did retaliate against its workers, that could encourage other workers across the region to report their own experiences to labor officials, said Ana Salgado, community co-chair of the NBJWJ board. That could potentially fuel the movement for greater worker protections ahead of wildfire season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A coalition of worker advocacy groups, including NBJWJ, \u003ca href=\"https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/farmworkers-deserve-safety-and-respect-in-sonoma-county?source=ig\">have pushed Sonoma County officials for months to put into place five safety standards\u003c/a> meant to protect workers as wildfires intensify due to climate change. These include providing safety and fire evacuation training in the workers’ first languages, including Indigenous languages, and allowing independent community observers to assess the safety of workers out in the field, so that workers are not alone when they report unsafe conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Earth is changing, and the way we protect workers must change as well,” said Salgado in Spanish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918370\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11918370 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"A group of people play the drums outside of an office building.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1710\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-800x534.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-1020x681.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-1536x1026.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-2048x1368.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/DSC02491-1920x1282.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Protesters gathered outside the Department of Emergency Management of Sonoma County on June 9, 2022, to demand greater protections for farmworkers before the onset of wildfire season. Organizers point out that climate change will only worsen in the coming years and insist that officials expand labor regulations to better protect workers as global temperatures increase. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Derek Knowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beyond Sonoma County, migrant rights advocates also are proposing structural reforms to the H-2A program to hold both employers and recruiters accountable for retaliation. Centro de los Derechos del Migrante has recommended that Congress approve legislation that reforms the recruitment process and ensures that workers who have suffered a labor rights violation in the U.S. can still access legal services once they’ve left the country. They’re also encouraging federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, to create a database accessible to workers that keeps track of H-2A employers and their recruiters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Cynthia Rice, attorney with the CRLA, points out a loophole in the existing accountability mechanism for H-2A employers: When a worker sues their company for an illegal labor practice, that company can settle the lawsuit and avoid admitting they violated labor law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because there has not been any admission of liability or wrongdoing, that employer can get another H-2A order the next year,” Rice said. If federal officials took into consideration which companies are settling lawsuits year after year when it decides which ones get to stay in the H-2A program, it could prevent employers who don’t protect their workers from staying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reforming the program isn’t just necessary to better protect H-2A workers, Rice said, but also would benefit American workers. When H-2A workers are more vulnerable to retaliation, that makes them more attractive to hire, since employers know they can exploit them without having to fear the same consequences they’d face in hiring Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We felt awful with the abuse we received, so we set out to learn what the employer actually needs to do.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>While he waits to hear the ALRB’s decision, Kevin has been sharing everything he’s learned in the past year with friends who are considering working in the U.S. He doesn’t want others to go through the same things he did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were happy with the job we had over there because it gave us the economic means to send money back to our families and save for a home or a business,” he said. But he added that doesn’t justify how he was treated: “We felt awful with the abuse we received, so we set out to learn what the employer actually needs to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "how-socially-responsible-is-amys-kitchen-depends-on-who-you-ask",
"title": "How 'Socially Responsible' Is Amy’s Kitchen? Depends on Who You Ask",
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"content": "\u003cp>Cecilia Luna Ojeda lives with chronic pain after injuries she said she sustained working the assembly lines for popular organic meal producer Amy’s Kitchen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Almost every day I’m working with pain, and almost every day I have to take pain-relievers,” said Luna Ojeda, 39, in Spanish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ergonomic hazards, production speeds that turned too fast, and management that didn’t prioritize safety pushed her and numerous other co-workers to get hurt and even require surgeries, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are already many people injured and others working with pain,” said Ojeda, who officially complained to state safety and health regulators about the company’s Santa Rosa plant in January of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why I’m speaking up, because I’m not afraid anymore,” she said. “We shouldn’t be afraid to defend one’s rights as a worker, as a person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stories like Ojeda’s and that of other \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amys-kitchen-says-food-made-love-factory-say-job-left-injured-rcna8189\">workers who allege they were injured working for Amy’s Kitchen\u003c/a> have hit the company’s socially responsible image. And in recent months, the organization has responded with a greater emphasis on safety measures, according to employees of the frozen meal producer, one of the top in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes as Amy’s Kitchen, a 35-year-old family-owned business that pledges goodness to people and the planet, now faces a nascent consumer boycott, a workforce debating whether to unionize, and a California Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) investigation prompted by three complaints about the Santa Rosa plant earlier this year, including Luna Ojeda’s.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Lauren Ornelas, founder, Food Empowerment Project\"]‘This is a company that has claimed to care about their workers. But it’s in stark contrast to the environment that they’ve created for the workers as well as the health of the workers.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is expected to release its findings — and any citations if violations were found — in coming weeks, after visiting the facility for what company staffers described as a “six-day, wall-to-wall” inspection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy’s Kitchen representatives have mostly denied the injury allegations, and insist that the company has always been committed to workers’ safety. But employees said the plant has made recent improvements aimed at preventing repetitive motion injuries on meal assembly lines, a main focus of the complaints to Cal/OSHA.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Workers notice recent changes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11915232\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11915232\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People wearing white coats, goggles, face masks and gloves standing over a food assembly line in a factory.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Employees at Amy’s Kitchen in Santa Rosa fold bean-and-cheese burritos on May 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For one thing, according to workers, the pace of work is slower, and production speeds are frequently monitored during each shift. Most employees are also now rotated on a daily basis among different assembly lines — from red rice and vegetable plates to ravioli bowls, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly 680 people are employed at the Amy’s Kitchen plant in Santa Rosa. On a recent morning, nearly two dozen women on the burrito line folded tortillas with bean-and-cheese filling, and placed them on conveyor belts. Most of them were first-generation Latina immigrants, and chatted amiably while working at an impressive speed for this home cook: up to 10 burritos per minute per person, according to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The number of required movements for each worker and the tasks themselves were designed with occupational therapists and ergonomic specialists, as well as worker input,” said Paul Schiefer, senior director of sustainability and communications for Amy’s Kitchen. Employees also take hourly breaks to stretch and move positions along the assembly line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have studied this work closely, not just ourselves, but with outside experts, and really believe it to be safe and appropriate and actually better than how most companies would operate a line like this,” said Schiefer, who has worked at the company for 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s our safety record that we should be judged on,” Schiefer added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite the relative calm on the burrito line, several employees are laboring through pain in their hands, according to workers. Some have been reassigned elsewhere because of injuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Amy’s safety record\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.osha.gov/Establishment-Specific-Injury-and-Illness-Data\">One way to assess the injury rate at Amy’s Kitchen\u003c/a> is to review statistics kept by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Those suggest the company’s injury rate is half that of its industry, which is frozen specialty food manufacturing. The figures are not always reliable, however, as they depend on businesses self-reporting work-related injuries to federal and state regulators. Media investigations have revealed that some companies, like \u003ca href=\"https://revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/\">Tesla\u003c/a>, underreported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worker accidents at the Amy’s Kitchen Santa Rosa plant between 2016 and 2019 led Cal/OSHA to \u003ca href=\"https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.search?p_logger=1&establishment=Amy%27s+Kitchen&State=CA&officetype=all&Office=all&sitezip=95407&p_case=all&p_violations_exist=all&startmonth=05&startday=03&startyear=2015&endmonth=05&endday=03&endyear=2022\">issue fines of nearly $106,000\u003c/a> in initial penalties, which the company contested. In one of those accidents, an employee’s finger was amputated on a food packaging line; in another, a worker sustained third-degree burns to their foot and ankle when they spilled hot soy milk used to make tofu, according to Cal/OSHA inspection reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company is scheduled for a settlement conference on June 22 to discuss most of the citations, according to a Cal/OSHA spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11915233\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11915233\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People wearing white coats, goggles, face masks and gloves standing over a vegetable assembly line in a factory.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers assemble ‘Greek Inspired Red Rice & Veggies’ frozen meals at the Amy’s Kitchen plant in Santa Rosa on May 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Schiefer characterized the accidents as “isolated incidents,” and said the company has taken decisive corrective actions to ensure they don’t happen again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We as a company deeply believe in getting rid of every risk we can and doing our absolute best to make this the safest place possible,” said Schiefer. “But there is an inherent risk in any type of physical work, and I think it’s something that’s just important to remember as we enjoy meals or anything that’s the byproduct of human work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An industry leader\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Amy’s Kitchen co-founders Andy and Rachel Berliner tapped into a growing market for ready-made vegetarian and vegan dishes. The couple started selling home-cooked pot pies in Sonoma County in 1987. Their business has since become the sixth-largest frozen entrée company in the U.S., with nearly \u003ca href=\"https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2020/11/05/Amy-s-Kitchen-gears-up-to-open-new-plant-predicts-revenues-will-approach-600m-in-2020#:~:text=Amy's%20Kitchen%20%E2%80%93%20maker%20of%20frozen,%2C%20CA%2C%20early%20next%20year.\">$600 million in revenue in 2020\u003c/a> and more than 2,700 employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The self-described values-led company is still owned by the Berliners, and sells hundreds of products made at production plants in Santa Rosa, San Jose, Idaho and Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Andy Berliner has famously said that employees are essential to the company’s success and are treated “like family.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You spend most of your life at work. We want people to be happy,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZu9hcXgxI\">Berliner told a business podcast last year\u003c/a>. “We couldn’t own a company where people aren’t happy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Luna Ojeda described her experience at Amy’s Kitchen as far from happy. The 17-year veteran of the organization said it wasn’t uncommon for her and others to be assigned a week at a time on the same assembly line for burritos and pies, run with ergonomically problematic machinery only recently replaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As recently as February 2019, Ojeda reported to her supervisor that one of her shoulders hurt because the pie line was going too fast. She’d already injured the other shoulder at work, she said, so she asked her supervisor to change her to a different task, and give her arms a break. But the supervisor sent her back to the line, she said, arguing she didn’t have a doctor’s note.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ojeda took her case to the human resources department at the plant, she was reassigned, to weighing food plates over and over for weeks. The pain in her shoulders and hands resurfaced. Finally, in April, two months after she first alerted supervisors she was in pain, a doctor put her hand in a brace that immobilized her arm, and the company sent her home to rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, Ojeda has been assigned to different meal assembly lines, but she still has to go to doctor visits to manage the pain. Her right wrist developed carpal tunnel syndrome, she said, stemming from an earlier injury she sustained in 2006 while manning the company’s soup canning line. The tendon in her wrist had basically broken, she said, and she underwent a surgery to repair it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a mother of four, Ojeda said she regrets that the pain she’s lived with now for years has prevented her from being able to pick up her kids when they were toddlers, or play ball with them at the beach as they got older. “It’s sad not being able to do activities with my children because I’m injured. It’s like, they robbed me of moments with my family,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The consumer boycott\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The stories of Ojeda and other \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amys-kitchen-says-food-made-love-factory-say-job-left-injured-rcna8189\">employees who have spoken publicly\u003c/a> about their experience with safety problems at Amy’s Kitchen has spurred a months-long consumer boycott encouraged by vegan groups such as \u003ca href=\"https://foodispower.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwp7eUBhBeEiwAZbHwkfguIbjSOMP93Wij5RSUGC-4YziYZ_jKGjhfl2JYLvCOnMGErTfpShoC4y4QAvD_BwE\">Food Empowerment Project\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.veggiemijas.com/\">Veggie Mijas\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A handful of worker-owned grocery stores have dropped Amy’s Kitchen products from their shelves, including Mandela Grocery Cooperative in Oakland and People’s Food Co-op in Portland, Oregon. Coven Market in Hamilton, Ontario, joined the boycott last week, said Lauren Ornelas, founder of Food Empowerment Project, which is based in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ornelas acknowledged their efforts are unlikely to make much of a dent in the company’s profits, as it continues to sell its products at large grocery chain stores like Costco and Safeway. The biggest impact has been to Amy’s Kitchen’s reputation, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The company is not living up to the reputation that they’ve created for themselves,” said Ornelas, adding that she became a vegan 30 years ago because she cares about the way food is produced. “This is a company that has claimed to care about their workers. But it’s in stark contrast to the environment that they’ve created for the workers as well as the health of the workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Union organizers with Teamsters Local 665 said that Amy’s Kitchen employees reached out to them late last year to begin conversations about organizing. Shortly after, the company hired Quest Consulting, a bilingual firm with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/union-organizers-and-workers-decry-union-busting-consulting-firms-hired-b/\">“union busting” reputation\u003c/a> among labor organizers, who say the consultants’ goal is to discourage workers from unionizing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The consultants told employees that the union would charge membership dues but may not keep their promises,” said Luna Ojeda. That narrative is consistent with previous \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amys-kitchen-says-food-made-love-factory-say-job-left-injured-rcna8189\">media reports\u003c/a> based on recordings of those meetings. While Amy’s representatives acknowledged they would rather not have a unionized workforce, they countered that Quest’s job was only to educate workers and train managers to answer questions about unions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11915234\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11915234\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Frozen meal packaging shows bowls of pasta.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amy’s Kitchen products are displayed at the company’s facilities in Santa Rosa, on May 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We would prefer to maintain the direct relationship that we’ve always had. A lot of good has come out of it,” said Schiefer. “But at the end of the day, our employees’ choice is what matters the most. And we would honor whatever choice they make.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ojeda said that while she is glad about the recent safety improvements, they should be enshrined in a union contract that discourages managers from increasing production speeds again later on. “I would like for these small changes to improve and be permanent so that we can avoid other people getting hurt,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Delorio, secretary-treasurer at Teamsters Local 665, assisted Ojeda in filing her complaint with Cal/OSHA. He also submitted a challenge to the business’ B Corp status, certified for high social and environmental performance, which he said is yet to be decided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not every worker favors a union. Margarita Vazquez Zamudio came out of meetings with Quest consultants convinced she doesn’t want to pay union membership dues for services she said are not needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vazquez Zamudio believes the safety of workers is a top priority for the company’s owner, Andy Berliner, and in her 26 years making enchiladas, lasagna and burritos at Amy’s Kitchen, management has been responsive to her concerns, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even Vazquez Zamudio applauded that the pace of production — and the number of repetitive motions she and others must make — has slowed down in the last two months, she said. Berliner ordered the change after employees told him directly that faster speeds were putting them at risk, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The owner told them to slow it down,” said Vazquez Zamudio, 60, who regularly wears protective wristbands at work. “Why do we want a union if the company listens to us?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement responding to worker reports of changes at the Santa Rosa plant, Schiefer said that production quotas are based on factors such as staffing and safety, as well as the availability of ingredients and equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the last few months, Amy’s Kitchen has been able to return to more normal plant operations as the impacts of COVID and the nation’s labor shortage have lessened,” wrote Schiefer. “Now that we’re experiencing more consistent staffing, we’re pleased to learn that many workers feel that the lines are moving more slowly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Cecilia Luna Ojeda lives with chronic pain after injuries she said she sustained working the assembly lines for popular organic meal producer Amy’s Kitchen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Almost every day I’m working with pain, and almost every day I have to take pain-relievers,” said Luna Ojeda, 39, in Spanish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ergonomic hazards, production speeds that turned too fast, and management that didn’t prioritize safety pushed her and numerous other co-workers to get hurt and even require surgeries, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are already many people injured and others working with pain,” said Ojeda, who officially complained to state safety and health regulators about the company’s Santa Rosa plant in January of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why I’m speaking up, because I’m not afraid anymore,” she said. “We shouldn’t be afraid to defend one’s rights as a worker, as a person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stories like Ojeda’s and that of other \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amys-kitchen-says-food-made-love-factory-say-job-left-injured-rcna8189\">workers who allege they were injured working for Amy’s Kitchen\u003c/a> have hit the company’s socially responsible image. And in recent months, the organization has responded with a greater emphasis on safety measures, according to employees of the frozen meal producer, one of the top in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes as Amy’s Kitchen, a 35-year-old family-owned business that pledges goodness to people and the planet, now faces a nascent consumer boycott, a workforce debating whether to unionize, and a California Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) investigation prompted by three complaints about the Santa Rosa plant earlier this year, including Luna Ojeda’s.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency is expected to release its findings — and any citations if violations were found — in coming weeks, after visiting the facility for what company staffers described as a “six-day, wall-to-wall” inspection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy’s Kitchen representatives have mostly denied the injury allegations, and insist that the company has always been committed to workers’ safety. But employees said the plant has made recent improvements aimed at preventing repetitive motion injuries on meal assembly lines, a main focus of the complaints to Cal/OSHA.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Workers notice recent changes\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11915232\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11915232\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People wearing white coats, goggles, face masks and gloves standing over a food assembly line in a factory.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2491-burrito-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Employees at Amy’s Kitchen in Santa Rosa fold bean-and-cheese burritos on May 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For one thing, according to workers, the pace of work is slower, and production speeds are frequently monitored during each shift. Most employees are also now rotated on a daily basis among different assembly lines — from red rice and vegetable plates to ravioli bowls, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly 680 people are employed at the Amy’s Kitchen plant in Santa Rosa. On a recent morning, nearly two dozen women on the burrito line folded tortillas with bean-and-cheese filling, and placed them on conveyor belts. Most of them were first-generation Latina immigrants, and chatted amiably while working at an impressive speed for this home cook: up to 10 burritos per minute per person, according to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The number of required movements for each worker and the tasks themselves were designed with occupational therapists and ergonomic specialists, as well as worker input,” said Paul Schiefer, senior director of sustainability and communications for Amy’s Kitchen. Employees also take hourly breaks to stretch and move positions along the assembly line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have studied this work closely, not just ourselves, but with outside experts, and really believe it to be safe and appropriate and actually better than how most companies would operate a line like this,” said Schiefer, who has worked at the company for 15 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s our safety record that we should be judged on,” Schiefer added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite the relative calm on the burrito line, several employees are laboring through pain in their hands, according to workers. Some have been reassigned elsewhere because of injuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Amy’s safety record\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.osha.gov/Establishment-Specific-Injury-and-Illness-Data\">One way to assess the injury rate at Amy’s Kitchen\u003c/a> is to review statistics kept by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Those suggest the company’s injury rate is half that of its industry, which is frozen specialty food manufacturing. The figures are not always reliable, however, as they depend on businesses self-reporting work-related injuries to federal and state regulators. Media investigations have revealed that some companies, like \u003ca href=\"https://revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/\">Tesla\u003c/a>, underreported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worker accidents at the Amy’s Kitchen Santa Rosa plant between 2016 and 2019 led Cal/OSHA to \u003ca href=\"https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.search?p_logger=1&establishment=Amy%27s+Kitchen&State=CA&officetype=all&Office=all&sitezip=95407&p_case=all&p_violations_exist=all&startmonth=05&startday=03&startyear=2015&endmonth=05&endday=03&endyear=2022\">issue fines of nearly $106,000\u003c/a> in initial penalties, which the company contested. In one of those accidents, an employee’s finger was amputated on a food packaging line; in another, a worker sustained third-degree burns to their foot and ankle when they spilled hot soy milk used to make tofu, according to Cal/OSHA inspection reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company is scheduled for a settlement conference on June 22 to discuss most of the citations, according to a Cal/OSHA spokesperson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11915233\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11915233\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"People wearing white coats, goggles, face masks and gloves standing over a vegetable assembly line in a factory.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/IMG_2474-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers assemble ‘Greek Inspired Red Rice & Veggies’ frozen meals at the Amy’s Kitchen plant in Santa Rosa on May 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Schiefer characterized the accidents as “isolated incidents,” and said the company has taken decisive corrective actions to ensure they don’t happen again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We as a company deeply believe in getting rid of every risk we can and doing our absolute best to make this the safest place possible,” said Schiefer. “But there is an inherent risk in any type of physical work, and I think it’s something that’s just important to remember as we enjoy meals or anything that’s the byproduct of human work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>An industry leader\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Amy’s Kitchen co-founders Andy and Rachel Berliner tapped into a growing market for ready-made vegetarian and vegan dishes. The couple started selling home-cooked pot pies in Sonoma County in 1987. Their business has since become the sixth-largest frozen entrée company in the U.S., with nearly \u003ca href=\"https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2020/11/05/Amy-s-Kitchen-gears-up-to-open-new-plant-predicts-revenues-will-approach-600m-in-2020#:~:text=Amy's%20Kitchen%20%E2%80%93%20maker%20of%20frozen,%2C%20CA%2C%20early%20next%20year.\">$600 million in revenue in 2020\u003c/a> and more than 2,700 employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The self-described values-led company is still owned by the Berliners, and sells hundreds of products made at production plants in Santa Rosa, San Jose, Idaho and Oregon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Andy Berliner has famously said that employees are essential to the company’s success and are treated “like family.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You spend most of your life at work. We want people to be happy,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZu9hcXgxI\">Berliner told a business podcast last year\u003c/a>. “We couldn’t own a company where people aren’t happy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet Luna Ojeda described her experience at Amy’s Kitchen as far from happy. The 17-year veteran of the organization said it wasn’t uncommon for her and others to be assigned a week at a time on the same assembly line for burritos and pies, run with ergonomically problematic machinery only recently replaced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As recently as February 2019, Ojeda reported to her supervisor that one of her shoulders hurt because the pie line was going too fast. She’d already injured the other shoulder at work, she said, so she asked her supervisor to change her to a different task, and give her arms a break. But the supervisor sent her back to the line, she said, arguing she didn’t have a doctor’s note.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Ojeda took her case to the human resources department at the plant, she was reassigned, to weighing food plates over and over for weeks. The pain in her shoulders and hands resurfaced. Finally, in April, two months after she first alerted supervisors she was in pain, a doctor put her hand in a brace that immobilized her arm, and the company sent her home to rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, Ojeda has been assigned to different meal assembly lines, but she still has to go to doctor visits to manage the pain. Her right wrist developed carpal tunnel syndrome, she said, stemming from an earlier injury she sustained in 2006 while manning the company’s soup canning line. The tendon in her wrist had basically broken, she said, and she underwent a surgery to repair it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a mother of four, Ojeda said she regrets that the pain she’s lived with now for years has prevented her from being able to pick up her kids when they were toddlers, or play ball with them at the beach as they got older. “It’s sad not being able to do activities with my children because I’m injured. It’s like, they robbed me of moments with my family,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The consumer boycott\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The stories of Ojeda and other \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amys-kitchen-says-food-made-love-factory-say-job-left-injured-rcna8189\">employees who have spoken publicly\u003c/a> about their experience with safety problems at Amy’s Kitchen has spurred a months-long consumer boycott encouraged by vegan groups such as \u003ca href=\"https://foodispower.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwp7eUBhBeEiwAZbHwkfguIbjSOMP93Wij5RSUGC-4YziYZ_jKGjhfl2JYLvCOnMGErTfpShoC4y4QAvD_BwE\">Food Empowerment Project\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.veggiemijas.com/\">Veggie Mijas\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A handful of worker-owned grocery stores have dropped Amy’s Kitchen products from their shelves, including Mandela Grocery Cooperative in Oakland and People’s Food Co-op in Portland, Oregon. Coven Market in Hamilton, Ontario, joined the boycott last week, said Lauren Ornelas, founder of Food Empowerment Project, which is based in San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ornelas acknowledged their efforts are unlikely to make much of a dent in the company’s profits, as it continues to sell its products at large grocery chain stores like Costco and Safeway. The biggest impact has been to Amy’s Kitchen’s reputation, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The company is not living up to the reputation that they’ve created for themselves,” said Ornelas, adding that she became a vegan 30 years ago because she cares about the way food is produced. “This is a company that has claimed to care about their workers. But it’s in stark contrast to the environment that they’ve created for the workers as well as the health of the workers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Union organizers with Teamsters Local 665 said that Amy’s Kitchen employees reached out to them late last year to begin conversations about organizing. Shortly after, the company hired Quest Consulting, a bilingual firm with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/union-organizers-and-workers-decry-union-busting-consulting-firms-hired-b/\">“union busting” reputation\u003c/a> among labor organizers, who say the consultants’ goal is to discourage workers from unionizing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The consultants told employees that the union would charge membership dues but may not keep their promises,” said Luna Ojeda. That narrative is consistent with previous \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amys-kitchen-says-food-made-love-factory-say-job-left-injured-rcna8189\">media reports\u003c/a> based on recordings of those meetings. While Amy’s representatives acknowledged they would rather not have a unionized workforce, they countered that Quest’s job was only to educate workers and train managers to answer questions about unions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11915234\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11915234\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Frozen meal packaging shows bowls of pasta.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Amys-Kitchen-products-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amy’s Kitchen products are displayed at the company’s facilities in Santa Rosa, on May 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Farida Jhabvala Romero/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We would prefer to maintain the direct relationship that we’ve always had. A lot of good has come out of it,” said Schiefer. “But at the end of the day, our employees’ choice is what matters the most. And we would honor whatever choice they make.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ojeda said that while she is glad about the recent safety improvements, they should be enshrined in a union contract that discourages managers from increasing production speeds again later on. “I would like for these small changes to improve and be permanent so that we can avoid other people getting hurt,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tony Delorio, secretary-treasurer at Teamsters Local 665, assisted Ojeda in filing her complaint with Cal/OSHA. He also submitted a challenge to the business’ B Corp status, certified for high social and environmental performance, which he said is yet to be decided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not every worker favors a union. Margarita Vazquez Zamudio came out of meetings with Quest consultants convinced she doesn’t want to pay union membership dues for services she said are not needed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vazquez Zamudio believes the safety of workers is a top priority for the company’s owner, Andy Berliner, and in her 26 years making enchiladas, lasagna and burritos at Amy’s Kitchen, management has been responsive to her concerns, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even Vazquez Zamudio applauded that the pace of production — and the number of repetitive motions she and others must make — has slowed down in the last two months, she said. Berliner ordered the change after employees told him directly that faster speeds were putting them at risk, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The owner told them to slow it down,” said Vazquez Zamudio, 60, who regularly wears protective wristbands at work. “Why do we want a union if the company listens to us?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement responding to worker reports of changes at the Santa Rosa plant, Schiefer said that production quotas are based on factors such as staffing and safety, as well as the availability of ingredients and equipment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the last few months, Amy’s Kitchen has been able to return to more normal plant operations as the impacts of COVID and the nation’s labor shortage have lessened,” wrote Schiefer. “Now that we’re experiencing more consistent staffing, we’re pleased to learn that many workers feel that the lines are moving more slowly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "despite-record-budget-surplus-california-unlikely-to-fix-massive-wage-theft-claim-delays-anytime-soon",
"title": "Despite Record Budget Surplus, California Unlikely to Fix Massive Wage-Theft Claim Backlog Anytime Soon",
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"headTitle": "Despite Record Budget Surplus, California Unlikely to Fix Massive Wage-Theft Claim Backlog Anytime Soon | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Even as California enjoys a staggering budget surplus estimated at $68 billion, tens of thousands of workers who claim they were shorted on their paychecks are expected to continue to endure exasperating delays — often stretching years — at the state agency charged with investigating wage theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Labor Commissioner’s Office, plagued by vacancies, is struggling to efficiently process 36,200 pending claims for unpaid wages. Close to half of those cases have taken longer than a year to resolve, while nearly 4,000 have languished for three years or more, according to Labor Commissioner’s Office records requested by KQED.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"María, restaurant worker in Berkeley\"]‘It’s very difficult for me to support my family and keep up with all of our expenses and bills. It’s taken too many years. As workers we have rights, and we need the authorities to solve this problem and do their job as it should be.’[/pullquote]The number of Californians directly hurt by the long wait times could be much higher, as multiple employees often jointly file one claim against an employer. The delays, which worsened during the pandemic, can make it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11903291/its-so-unfair-major-delays-at-state-labor-agency-leave-many-wage-theft-victims-uncompensated\">more difficult for workers to ultimately recover any owed wages\u003c/a>, and fuel an environment of impunity, according to labor enforcement experts and worker advocates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>María, a restaurant worker, has waited almost four years for a ruling on her claim for $35,000 in unpaid wages. KQED is withholding her full name because she fears it could hurt her case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the more than a decade that she washed dishes and cleaned at a Berkeley restaurant, María often worked overtime, she said. But her employer didn’t compensate her for those hours, or provide her with meal and rest breaks or paid sick leave, as required by law, according to her complaint filed in July 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the 50-year-old single mother of four, who is originally from Mexico, said she needs a resolution to her case urgently, noting that she has fallen behind on rent and fears her family could soon be evicted from their apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very difficult for me to support my family and keep up with all of our expenses and bills,” María said in Spanish. “It’s taken too many years. As workers we have rights, and we need the authorities to solve this problem and do their job as it should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Open Wage-Theft Cases Filed With the CA Labor Commissioner's Office\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-KRx6d\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KRx6d/6/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why the wait is so long\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many cases reach a settlement early in the Labor Commissioner’s wage-claim process, one originally designed as a faster and free-of-cost alternative to filing a lawsuit in state court. But the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/howtofilewageclaim.htm\">disputes that remain unresolved are given a hearing\u003c/a>, a trial-like event that aims to offer due process to both employers and workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By law, the Labor Commissioner, also known as the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, must hold hearings within 120 days of the date the claim was filed. Yet California workers are forced to wait an average of 808 days, or more than two years, for a hearing to resolve their case, according to agency data. The worst delays, averaging more than three years, are in the Oakland branch, where María submitted her claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the Labor Commissioner’s Office, said the number of pending claims may include cases where the status was not updated, as the agency began using a new computer-management system in 2016. But she did not elaborate on why those errors have not yet been fixed, or how many cases still listed as pending may actually have been closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 24,000 claims have been filed on average per year since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower acknowledged that the wait times for wage claim and citation hearings are “unacceptable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the problem of backlogs is not a new one, I am committed to doing everything in my power to reduce the amount of time workers who have suffered wage theft have to wait for justice,” she wrote. “My office is working tirelessly to improve the existing backlogs that were worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understaffing is a big problem at the agency, which scheduled more than 29,000 hearings for wage claims from 2019 thru 2021. Hearing officers must consider evidence and issue a final decision on individual worker complaints, as well as employer appeals on hundreds of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11903291/its-so-unfair-major-delays-at-state-labor-agency-leave-many-wage-theft-victims-uncompensated\">citations issued by the agency\u003c/a>. Millions of dollars in fines and back wages are often at stake in those more complex cases, which can affect hundreds of employees at a time, and require hearings that last several days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But currently, the Labor Commissioner has only 64 hearing-officer positions, and not all of them are filled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has proposed adding just six more hearing officers and 17 other staff to support the wage-claim process statewide for the next fiscal year, which starts in July. That’s in part due to the increased workload the agency expects to have, resulting from new laws expanding its enforcement authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worker advocates have applauded that expansion, but warn that far more hearing officers are needed to address the huge backlog in a timely manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given the numbers we are talking about, I’m not confident it’s going to make a meaningful dent” for workers, said Shane Gusman, who directs the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council. Gusman has lobbied in Sacramento for improvements at labor enforcement agencies, which he says have been historically starved for cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though there’s been growth in personnel and resources, they’ve never caught up,” said Gusman. “You could double the Labor Commissioner’s Office budget, and they would still be underfunded.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2022-23/pdf/GovernorsBudget/7000/7350.pdf\">Newsom’s office has proposed cutting the agency’s relatively small budget\u003c/a>, of about $155 million, by 6% next fiscal year, including a decrease of nearly $1 million for its wage-claim adjudication unit, according to records from the state Department of Finance. The overall budget reduction is due to the expiration of one-time funds for pilots and other projects at the division, finance officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Vacancies fueled by a catch-22\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Officials at the Labor Commissioner and its parent agency, the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), could request more funds from the budget being negotiated in Sacramento to hire additional hearing officers, \u003ca href=\"https://esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/2021/FY2021_ORG7350_BCP3767.pdf\">as they’ve done in previous years\u003c/a>. But any significant increases are unlikely to be approved by Newsom’s office and the Legislature, given DIR’s already high vacancy rate of 25%, a gap lawmakers mentioned during a February budget hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We wouldn’t necessarily give them more money if they have all these vacancies for the positions they currently already have” funds for, said San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting, who chairs the Assembly’s Budget Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have more money, more resources. We could definitely assist,” said Ting, referring to the state’s abundant surplus. “But all we can do is just keep pushing them to hire those [vacancies] as fast as possible, get them up to speed as soon as possible so that they can start processing these claims.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ting, who used to work for a nonprofit organization that represents lower-income workers in wage-theft cases, said the budget committee would look into holding another oversight hearing into the long-standing vacancy problem in the fall.[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"wage-theft\"]In fairness, many employers are having trouble hiring and retaining workers as the pandemic drags on, and the state hiring process can be slower than that of the private sector, with several layers of bureaucracy that may be involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, DIR vets many steps of the hiring process, from the language in job postings to the list of questions candidates can be asked during an interview, and the department is notoriously slow in approving hires, said Garrett Brown, a retired inspector from the Division of Occupational Health and Safety, or Cal/OSHA, another agency beholden to DIR’s hiring approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem here is failing to hire, and the failure to hire [is due to] difficulties in the state employment situation generally, magnified by many, many times, by the inability of the DIR HR staff to competently and swiftly hire and fill vacant positions,” said Brown, who has tracked vacancies for safety inspectors and other positions at his former agency for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The buck stops with the DIR director, Katie Hagen,” said Brown. “She was supposed to solve this problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hagen, who was appointed by Newsom in March 2020, does have a background in human resources. She declined an interview with KQED, but said in a statement that her department and the Labor Commissioner’s Office strive to hire qualified candidates “in line with the state’s merit based hiring requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal of DIR and the Labor Commissioner’s Office is to fill all vacant positions within the Department as quickly as possible, and the Department is making steady progress,” wrote Hagen. She added that the Labor Commissioner made 104 hires in its wage-claim adjudication unit between January 2021 and last April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That figure points to jaw-dropping turnover at the unit, which has a total of \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/budget/publications/2022-23/salaries-and-wages-updates/LWD.pdf\">250 positions\u003c/a> this year. The vacancies are contributing to low morale, said local attorneys who represent Bay Area workers in wage-theft cases. (\u003ca href=\"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/low-morale-at-labors-wage-and-hour-shrinks-investigative-ranks\">Low morale also is leading to attrition at a federal labor law enforcement agency\u003c/a>, according to a recent Bloomberg report.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>María, the restaurant worker in Berkeley, said she’s cutting costs by going without things like new clothes, while trying to fight a gnawing fear that she might not recover the wages she believes she’s owed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She feels frustrated not just for herself, she said, but for the thousands of working Californians who also are forced to wait years for a resolution, including many who can’t afford to have their wages stolen — and is incredulous the state hasn’t found a way to fix the delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state has enough money,” María said. “Why don’t they solve this problem?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced in collaboration with the California Newsroom.\u003c/em> [ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Severe understaffing has long been a big problem at the state agency responsible for enforcing minimum wage and other labor laws. Nearly half of the 36,200 pending claims for unpaid wages have taken more than a year to get resolved.",
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"description": "Severe understaffing has long been a big problem at the state agency responsible for enforcing minimum wage and other labor laws. Nearly half of the 36,200 pending claims for unpaid wages have taken more than a year to get resolved.",
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"headline": "Despite Record Budget Surplus, California Unlikely to Fix Massive Wage-Theft Claim Backlog Anytime Soon",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Even as California enjoys a staggering budget surplus estimated at $68 billion, tens of thousands of workers who claim they were shorted on their paychecks are expected to continue to endure exasperating delays — often stretching years — at the state agency charged with investigating wage theft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Labor Commissioner’s Office, plagued by vacancies, is struggling to efficiently process 36,200 pending claims for unpaid wages. Close to half of those cases have taken longer than a year to resolve, while nearly 4,000 have languished for three years or more, according to Labor Commissioner’s Office records requested by KQED.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘It’s very difficult for me to support my family and keep up with all of our expenses and bills. It’s taken too many years. As workers we have rights, and we need the authorities to solve this problem and do their job as it should be.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The number of Californians directly hurt by the long wait times could be much higher, as multiple employees often jointly file one claim against an employer. The delays, which worsened during the pandemic, can make it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11903291/its-so-unfair-major-delays-at-state-labor-agency-leave-many-wage-theft-victims-uncompensated\">more difficult for workers to ultimately recover any owed wages\u003c/a>, and fuel an environment of impunity, according to labor enforcement experts and worker advocates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>María, a restaurant worker, has waited almost four years for a ruling on her claim for $35,000 in unpaid wages. KQED is withholding her full name because she fears it could hurt her case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the more than a decade that she washed dishes and cleaned at a Berkeley restaurant, María often worked overtime, she said. But her employer didn’t compensate her for those hours, or provide her with meal and rest breaks or paid sick leave, as required by law, according to her complaint filed in July 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the 50-year-old single mother of four, who is originally from Mexico, said she needs a resolution to her case urgently, noting that she has fallen behind on rent and fears her family could soon be evicted from their apartment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very difficult for me to support my family and keep up with all of our expenses and bills,” María said in Spanish. “It’s taken too many years. As workers we have rights, and we need the authorities to solve this problem and do their job as it should be.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Open Wage-Theft Cases Filed With the CA Labor Commissioner's Office\" aria-label=\"Column Chart\" id=\"datawrapper-chart-KRx6d\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KRx6d/6/\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border: none;\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Why the wait is so long\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many cases reach a settlement early in the Labor Commissioner’s wage-claim process, one originally designed as a faster and free-of-cost alternative to filing a lawsuit in state court. But the \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/howtofilewageclaim.htm\">disputes that remain unresolved are given a hearing\u003c/a>, a trial-like event that aims to offer due process to both employers and workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By law, the Labor Commissioner, also known as the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, must hold hearings within 120 days of the date the claim was filed. Yet California workers are forced to wait an average of 808 days, or more than two years, for a hearing to resolve their case, according to agency data. The worst delays, averaging more than three years, are in the Oakland branch, where María submitted her claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the Labor Commissioner’s Office, said the number of pending claims may include cases where the status was not updated, as the agency began using a new computer-management system in 2016. But she did not elaborate on why those errors have not yet been fixed, or how many cases still listed as pending may actually have been closed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly 24,000 claims have been filed on average per year since 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower acknowledged that the wait times for wage claim and citation hearings are “unacceptable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While the problem of backlogs is not a new one, I am committed to doing everything in my power to reduce the amount of time workers who have suffered wage theft have to wait for justice,” she wrote. “My office is working tirelessly to improve the existing backlogs that were worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Understaffing is a big problem at the agency, which scheduled more than 29,000 hearings for wage claims from 2019 thru 2021. Hearing officers must consider evidence and issue a final decision on individual worker complaints, as well as employer appeals on hundreds of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11903291/its-so-unfair-major-delays-at-state-labor-agency-leave-many-wage-theft-victims-uncompensated\">citations issued by the agency\u003c/a>. Millions of dollars in fines and back wages are often at stake in those more complex cases, which can affect hundreds of employees at a time, and require hearings that last several days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But currently, the Labor Commissioner has only 64 hearing-officer positions, and not all of them are filled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has proposed adding just six more hearing officers and 17 other staff to support the wage-claim process statewide for the next fiscal year, which starts in July. That’s in part due to the increased workload the agency expects to have, resulting from new laws expanding its enforcement authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worker advocates have applauded that expansion, but warn that far more hearing officers are needed to address the huge backlog in a timely manner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given the numbers we are talking about, I’m not confident it’s going to make a meaningful dent” for workers, said Shane Gusman, who directs the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council. Gusman has lobbied in Sacramento for improvements at labor enforcement agencies, which he says have been historically starved for cash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though there’s been growth in personnel and resources, they’ve never caught up,” said Gusman. “You could double the Labor Commissioner’s Office budget, and they would still be underfunded.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2022-23/pdf/GovernorsBudget/7000/7350.pdf\">Newsom’s office has proposed cutting the agency’s relatively small budget\u003c/a>, of about $155 million, by 6% next fiscal year, including a decrease of nearly $1 million for its wage-claim adjudication unit, according to records from the state Department of Finance. The overall budget reduction is due to the expiration of one-time funds for pilots and other projects at the division, finance officials said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Vacancies fueled by a catch-22\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Officials at the Labor Commissioner and its parent agency, the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), could request more funds from the budget being negotiated in Sacramento to hire additional hearing officers, \u003ca href=\"https://esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/2021/FY2021_ORG7350_BCP3767.pdf\">as they’ve done in previous years\u003c/a>. But any significant increases are unlikely to be approved by Newsom’s office and the Legislature, given DIR’s already high vacancy rate of 25%, a gap lawmakers mentioned during a February budget hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We wouldn’t necessarily give them more money if they have all these vacancies for the positions they currently already have” funds for, said San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting, who chairs the Assembly’s Budget Committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have more money, more resources. We could definitely assist,” said Ting, referring to the state’s abundant surplus. “But all we can do is just keep pushing them to hire those [vacancies] as fast as possible, get them up to speed as soon as possible so that they can start processing these claims.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ting, who used to work for a nonprofit organization that represents lower-income workers in wage-theft cases, said the budget committee would look into holding another oversight hearing into the long-standing vacancy problem in the fall.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In fairness, many employers are having trouble hiring and retaining workers as the pandemic drags on, and the state hiring process can be slower than that of the private sector, with several layers of bureaucracy that may be involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, DIR vets many steps of the hiring process, from the language in job postings to the list of questions candidates can be asked during an interview, and the department is notoriously slow in approving hires, said Garrett Brown, a retired inspector from the Division of Occupational Health and Safety, or Cal/OSHA, another agency beholden to DIR’s hiring approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem here is failing to hire, and the failure to hire [is due to] difficulties in the state employment situation generally, magnified by many, many times, by the inability of the DIR HR staff to competently and swiftly hire and fill vacant positions,” said Brown, who has tracked vacancies for safety inspectors and other positions at his former agency for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The buck stops with the DIR director, Katie Hagen,” said Brown. “She was supposed to solve this problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hagen, who was appointed by Newsom in March 2020, does have a background in human resources. She declined an interview with KQED, but said in a statement that her department and the Labor Commissioner’s Office strive to hire qualified candidates “in line with the state’s merit based hiring requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal of DIR and the Labor Commissioner’s Office is to fill all vacant positions within the Department as quickly as possible, and the Department is making steady progress,” wrote Hagen. She added that the Labor Commissioner made 104 hires in its wage-claim adjudication unit between January 2021 and last April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That figure points to jaw-dropping turnover at the unit, which has a total of \u003ca href=\"https://dof.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/budget/publications/2022-23/salaries-and-wages-updates/LWD.pdf\">250 positions\u003c/a> this year. The vacancies are contributing to low morale, said local attorneys who represent Bay Area workers in wage-theft cases. (\u003ca href=\"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/low-morale-at-labors-wage-and-hour-shrinks-investigative-ranks\">Low morale also is leading to attrition at a federal labor law enforcement agency\u003c/a>, according to a recent Bloomberg report.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>María, the restaurant worker in Berkeley, said she’s cutting costs by going without things like new clothes, while trying to fight a gnawing fear that she might not recover the wages she believes she’s owed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She feels frustrated not just for herself, she said, but for the thousands of working Californians who also are forced to wait years for a resolution, including many who can’t afford to have their wages stolen — and is incredulous the state hasn’t found a way to fix the delays.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state has enough money,” María said. “Why don’t they solve this problem?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced in collaboration with the California Newsroom.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"order": 9
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"source": "American Public Media"
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
},
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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