There goes the food supply

When the coronavirus hit, [agricultural workers in California’s Central Valley were] ruled essential, so they kept working in the often cramped facilities that fuel a state industry that exports $21bn in agricultural products each year.

[...]

[T]hey took their places at the production lines and sorting tables, against all social distancing guidelines, as their companies made excuses for why coworker after coworker stopped showing up for their shifts. Some workers said they had to learn from news reports that they had been exposed to Covid-19. Others said they felt obligated to work even when showing virus symptoms.

Then they returned to their homes in cities across the region, unknowingly exposing their parents, their spouses, their children, aunts, uncles and cousins to the virus.

“We felt like they would tell us. They would take precautions. But they didn’t,” said Marielos Cisneros of her former employer, the nut producer Primex Farms, when the pandemic began.

  Guardian

Not that they could have done differently, but that was quite naive.

When people stopped showing up for their shifts, management would say they were on vacation.

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At Primex, employees went on strike on 25 June and 6 July to demand the company adhere to federal law that requires employers like Primex to provide paid leave for specified reasons related to Covid-19 for up to 80 hours. Workers at the company struggled to get their full 80 hours paid, workers and UFW said. Cisneros said Primex told her it counted as vacation time.

After the strike, workers received their 80 hours, but then Primex laid off 40 employees, including, according to workers, Alvarado and some of the most outspoken when it came to the virus. Primex said the cuts were necessary because of production needs. Soon afterwards, it began hiring new workers. Rojas, the Primex spokesperson, said the company “has always paid the state COVID-19 80-hour sick pay” and that “the company has never retaliated against any employee”. He added: “All of the changes in personnel are typical changes during the season.”

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About 60 miles north in Kings county, another outbreak swept through Central Valley Meat Co, a slaughterhouse and beef-packaging plant.

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The first person infected stopped coming to work in April, and when workers asked why, management told them he had an earache, Martin, 31, said. It wasn’t until that person’s brother, who lived with him and also worked at the plant, tested positive and told their coworkers that they realized coronavirus had arrived.

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When Maria Pilar Ornelas, the lawsuit’s main plaintiff, began struggling to breathe at work on 23 April, she asked management if she could get tested, according to the lawsuit. They told her testing was only offered to employees “chosen by the company”, the suit said, and told her she had to finish her shift, even though she had a headache so severe that her vision became blurry. She soon developed a fever of 103.7.

Ornelas eventually paid $225 for a test because the company does not provide health insurance, the lawsuit said. By then, she had unknowingly spread the virus.

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Many who do the low-wage labor that keeps these industries afloat are Latinx and do not speak English, making it difficult for them to communicate with their employers and understand their rights. Some are undocumented, with the fear of deportation preventing them from coming forward with any grievances.

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More than 21% of workers in the region live below the poverty line and 17.9% are dependent on food stamps, according to the researchers. The region’s immigrants have the lowest rate of naturalization in the state. Most workers don’t qualify for federally guaranteed emergency leave, and if they are undocumented, they do not qualify for unemployment.

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In 10 counties, state authorities list workplaces and businesses as likely drivers for increased transmission. In at least two more counties, outbreaks in several food processing facilities have led to hundreds of infections.

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The Central Valley runs 450 miles down the center of California [and] contains the largest concentration of dairies in the state, as well as a number of meat-processing centers, together with the farms forming an agricultural juggernaut.

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In the eight counties of the San Joaquin Valley, a 27,000-square-mile area of 4.3 million residents, coronavirus cases are at 1,900 per 100,000 residents. In comparison, the San Francisco Bay Area, with 7.7 million residents in 7,000 square miles, has 770 cases per 100,000 residents.

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[T]he federal and state occupational safety and health division has received more complaints out of the Central Valley and inspected more accidents in this region than anywhere else in the state.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.