3 company officials charged with involuntary manslaughter in pregnant teen worker's death

3 company officials charged with involuntary manslaughter in pregnant teen worker’s death

April 27, 2009 by Fred Hosier

Posted in: criminal charges, Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Worker health

California is serious about providing outdoor workers with relief from heat: Three top officials for a now out-of-business farm labor contractor face involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of a teen from heat stress.

The San Joaquin County District Attorney has charged the former owner, safety director and a supervisor of Merced Farm Labor in the death of 17-year-old Maria Vasquez Jimenez. She was two months pregnant at the time of her death.

The three were also charged with one felony and five misdemeanor violations of state labor code.

Authorities say Vasquez Jimenez died May 14, 2008, because she lacked access to shade and water as she pruned grapevines for more than nine hours in nearly triple-digit heat.

After she collapsed, her supervisor recommended she rest in a hot van. Her fiance took her to a medical clinic two hours later.

Cal-OSHA fined Merced Farms $262,700 for violating eight workplace safety rules. The company later surrendered its license.

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Tags: heat stress, involuntary manslaughter, Maria Vasquez Jimenez, relief from heat

Aïda

To J: That’s great if you were physically capable of tying steel when you were 8 months pregnant. I’m saying this young girl wasn’t physically capable of doing this kind of work and should have recognized her limitations. I’ve worked in very hot temperatures, so I know how hot it can get. I also never implied that females are “delicate little flowers”. I’ve worked offshore for years, so I am not a “delicate little flower”.

I never said, or implied, for her to “sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam”. I don’t know where you get that statement from. I did say she should have looked for other type of work that she had the physical capabilities to do. And please note that my first comment was that the employer should have given her breaks in the shade and provided water. I’ll say to you what I said to CB: Please keep your comments civil in this forum.
J

Aida, I was tying steel at 8 months pregnant for a commercial job. Hot is hot. Pregnant does not mean weak disabled helpless. Do you have children? Have you worked in the heat. I have three and have worked in temps over 100 and under -10. Employers responsibility to provide shade, rest and all- read OSHA- She died. Her child died. And you blame her? She needed human consideration- not you to say she needs to “sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam”- most females aren’t delicate little flowers. We chop wood, tie steel set forms and live in the real world. Where do you live?
Annehearsall

Does not matter to me if she was white, black, yellow, pink or purple!!! She was a young girl, working to make a living. If she knew she was pregnant or not, she was working to make a living. I dont know about you but I see a lot of 17 year old white kids on the streets causing problems or sitting on their buts playing computer games! I have 4 teenagers (all of which work) and I have respect for any 17 year old that works…..so who cares where she is from or why she was there, the girl died! That company should be totally at fault for not taking proper care of the employees. This was totally preventable and they should be fined more. Her family should be well taken care of.
http://safetynewsalert.com Kathleen R.

I’m a certified first aid teacher and have had heat exhaustion. One of the saddest things about this case is that heat exhaustion and heat stroke can cause mental confusion. So the worker may not physically have been capable of stopping work and demanding water because of this condition.
Scott

I am an employer in Arizona where the temps reach 110 or above on a regular basis. It seems clear that the employer failed to train their staff in heat related illnesses which in this work environment would be a requirement of OSHA. However there is no requirement to provide workers shade during the work day regardless of the environment that they are working in. In addition there are many trades that work in the sun and it would be nearly impossible to provide shade to them do to the nature of there work. The bottom line is that the employer is responsible to provide a safe work environment with properly trained employees for the hazards that are present and from what is written here this employer failed to provide that.

PS definitely a tragedy that was avoidabled.
Deeba Yavrom

Given that nearly 50% of farmworkers in the US are undocumented, the argument “If she was an illegal immigrant, the farm should never have hired her in the first place” does not hold much credibility. Sure they shouldn’t be hiring undocumented workers…but they do, and thats what we have to work with. And if she did not know that she was pregnant, then how can she be considered as irresponsible. And lets say she did know she was pregnant, like CB was saying, do you think she has any other means of money making to support her baby…probably not. So she did what she felt she had to do. Its a sad and disgusting cycle where these workers are exploited beyond belief, becoming slaves to growers and FLC”s who consider them as nothing more than a pair of hands.
Aïda

To CB: Okay, your comments towards me are not very nice, and don’t belong in a forum like this. First of all, NO company should be hiring illegal immigrants, if that is what she was. Secondly, I said the company should have have provided shade and water to her, no matter what her status was. The one thing I agree with you on is that farmers need to provide for their workers, especially given the adverse weather conditions. I believe they are LEGALLY bound to provide this to their workers.

My point was that when a woman becomes pregnant she has to consider her baby’s needs first and foremost. It is elitist on your part to use the argument that she didn’t “have the luxury of taking paid maternity leave” or that she had no choice but to prune grapevines.

If she was a legal immigrant she should have looked into other forms of work such as maid work (don’t knock it, it’s good work), or nanny work if she didn’t have the education to do something else.

If she was an illegal immigrant, the farm should never have hired her in the first place.

Now, keep it nice on these forums, there’s no need for verbal attacks.
CB

Aïda: Take responsibility for her health?? Are you serious?? Do you even live in California? Have you ever visited the Central Valley during the summer months when this woman was working? If you have, you’d know how God-awful the heat gets, and you might not have said what you said. I live in the Central Valley in California, and a lot of those farm workers are immigrants from Mexico who have little to no money, meager English-speaking skills, and they find the only work they are qualified to do because they have no established or documented life in America. I can’t recall if the news stories ever confirmed that she was in fact in immigrant from Mexico, but I think comments like “she needed to take responsibility for her own health” are completely ignorant, especially if you don’t live in the San Joaquin Valley in California. She didn’t die because she was being irresponsible, she died because her employer had a bias against immigrant farm workers–”if they’re not even legal citizens anyway, I shouldn’t be held responsible for their welfare while they are working in my grape fields because they don’t have the same rights as American citizens.” And, how many American citizens do you know would prefer to do that kind of back-breaking work? I believe this woman was doing what she thought she had to so she could scrape together meager wages to pay rent in the dumpy apartment she probably shared with her fiance, and so she could provide for her baby once it was born. Too bad she didn’t live that long. She probably had no choice BUT to be pruning grapevines because that’s the only work immigrants can find in the Central Valley; and, just like any other outdoors worker, she is ENTITLED to–and her employers are obligated to provide for her–shade and water as much as and as often as she needs it. She was 2 months pregnant, and migrant (confirm?) farm workers like her don’t have the luxury of taking paid maternity leave or going on state disability (especially if she wasn’t a legal resident). Farmers need to take care of their help just the same as anyone else has to, whether they are legal residents or not, and this type of bias against immigrant workers needs to stop if our agricultural industry is going to thrive. Immigrant workers are still HUMANS, and all humans need water to survive.
http://safetyattitudes.biz Nestor Arboleda

Who can be responsable for work with the employees, in hot sun? where was the supervisor? or anyone in the company to check out the job? Was safety training in the company? The supervisors are training to watch for the people? Still some one in the field saying that OSHA did not need to be enforcement to prevent accidents! No need it, let people died or suffer accidents, lose of limb, is they reponsible for the act? how was traeted to do the job? No concience, only work, work, work and who cares? The resiults are obvious, the young mopther died! What is good to have money, is the place of work are unsafe? The life is more precious that money…What’s going on? What is possible to anyone understand that any worker is a HUMAN PERSON? even any animal as a pet has better traetment tat any worker. Here you can read waht happen and what you can said?
Diane

I do see some personal responsibility being needed but we are talking about a 17 year-old individual. At 17 I did what adults and my bosses wanted because that was my place. There is a good chance Vasquez did not know she had the right to rest and water.

I agree with Paula that the company did not address former violations and should have known better than to send an employee who had fainted to a hot van. I work in a manufacturing facility and even we know to let our employees take breaks and bring in cool refreshment in the summer when the plant gets above 85 F.
Ed

The mention of her age and pregnancy is spurious. There are pregnant young people working all over the world without incident. Neither one has real impact on the matter. The real problem was whether she (or any of the other workers) was properly protected from the heat. Anyone can succumb to heat stroke.

Workers depend on their employers to take care of them under those circumstances. The employer is responsible to see that his workers understand the danger of heat stroke and are properly protected from the heat. Failure to do so demonstrates real ignorance or lack of concern on the part of the employer.
Paula

While I do agree that there is some personal responsibility on all of us knowing our limitations and not doing jobs that we aren’t capable of doing… I don’t agree that is the situation in this case. The company had been cited the year prior for not training their supervisors and employees for these types of issues… And they sent her to a hot van to rest? Obviously, they did nothing to correct the violations from the previous year. In this case, these charges are justified.

Had she left the job, she would have likely been fired for job abandonment.

Realistically, as an employer, your opinions of a 17 year old being pregnant should be left at home. As a side note to that, from what I read, it didn’t appear as if she was aware at the time.
Aïda

Granted, the company should have given her breaks in the shade, and provided water, but if she was two months pregnant she shouldn’t have been working in the fields in triple digit temperatures. People need to take responsibility for their health, and pregnant women especially should know that they cannot do the same things while pregnant that they were able to do before the pregnancy.

And I won’t offer my opinion of a 17 year old being pregnant.