Lorena Abalos is no stranger to the fields of Washington state. She picked cherries and blueberries under the hot summer sun here for years.
It was not just a job but a way of life. Her son Andy joined her when he turned 13.
"She needed help to pay for food," Andy recalled.
But in the summer of 2021, things changed for Abalos. That year, a heat wave swept across the Pacific Northwest. Temperatures hit triple digits for weeks on end.
"He was so little," Abalos said in Spanish. "I no longer wanted to take him when we started to go in at 3 a.m. because it was very dangerous. We would run into snakes, other animals and we pick blindly because they gave us a little lamp and we barely see our hands."
Due to the heat, the harvest times got earlier. Picking berries in the hot sun is a danger to both the fruit and the workers.
"It was really hot and I would start feeling like I was about to pass out," Andy remembered.
The heat dome that blanketed the Pacific Northwest in 2021 is being repeated across the southern U.S. this year. Record temperatures have engulfed states like Texas with no relief. Like that past summer for the Abalos family, the heat is hardest for the people who work in the unforgiving sun day after day.
Abalos and Andy worked under a tarp in place to prevent birds from getting the berries. She recalled one day when the heat became too much.
The blazing hot temperatures, which lead to the deaths of farmworkers and others across the Pacific Northwest that summer, led the Biden administration to move forward on one of the president's campaign promises: creating heat protections for workers. But the rulemaking process is slow and two years later — as another heat dome causes deaths among farm workers and others — it is still not done.
"Addressing heat illness and addressing it specifically through rulemaking is one of our top priorities," said Doug Parker, assistant secretary for Occupational Safety and Health at the Labor Department. "Heat is particularly important because of the broad range of workers that it affects and because of the issues of equity that are involved."
"So many workers who are disproportionately affected by heat are low-wage workers who have jobs outside [and] are often immigrant workers, workers of color," he explained.
Parker told NPR he is hearing concerns about workplace safety in southern states that have faced excessive heat warnings for several weeks. The heatwave has reignited the calls for a federal rule, particularly after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott eliminated city and county ordinances for mandated water breaks.
Source: iowapublicradio.org
Photo Credit: istock-pixeldigits
Categories: Iowa, General, Government & Policy, Weather