Unsafe transport leads to death: Farmworkers ‘disposable'?
Jose Rangel Chavez and 18 other Mexican guest workers were dozing as their bus hurtled down Interstate 40 in a light rain. After nine months away from home, the 22-year-old was about to complete a meandering round trip of nearly 5,000 miles.
They were just north of Little Rock, Ark., about a half day’s hard ride from the border, when the motor coach struck a concrete bridge support, peeling back the roof like a sardine can. Chavez and five others were killed; seven more workers were severely injured.
The crash in November 2015 was the result of chronic problems within an American agriculture industry dependent upon a reliable supply of low-wage, foreign-born workers. Chavez and the others were part of an annual mass migration made possible partly by a guarantee of free and safe transportation to and from the fields each day and, at season’s end, back home to their loved ones.
But for many, that transportation is neither free nor safe.
It has been just over a half-century since the nation’s worst fatal vehicle accident killed nearly three dozen migrants, a horror that farmworker advocates had hoped would bring lasting reforms. Yet, because of enforcement gaps and the sometimes callous attitudes of those who contract for the workers, laborers continue to ride in overloaded, poorly maintained, uninsured vehicles — often driven by a fellow crew member without a proper license, or with no license at all.
The Associated Press found more than a dozen accidents that left at least 38 dead and nearly 200 injured just since January 2015. The casualties included a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old, traveling with migrant worker parents.
Grim as it is, the AP’s tally is almost certainly a significant undercount.
I think there’s more unregistered, improperly insured, unsafe transportation out there for farmworkers than ... 20 years ago.
Greg Schell
deputy director of Southern Migrant Legal Services“I think there’s more unregistered, improperly insured, unsafe transportation out there for farmworkers than ... 20 years ago,” says attorney Greg Schell, deputy director of Southern Migrant Legal Services.
A big reason, he and others contend: Rarely are those who profit most from this cheap labor made to pay. Instead, it is the families of people like Jose Chavez who lose.
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In exchange for tending the landowner’s animals in their remote mountain village, the Chavez family got the use of a leaky wooden shack. Jose wanted more for his parents and siblings, so he signed on to do farm labor in the United States.
Of the 1.1 million farmworkers in the U.S., 71 percent are foreign-born, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Nearly half of those acknowledge working here illegally.
Chavez’s employer, Vasquez Citrus & Hauling of Lake Placid, Fla., is one of thousands taking part in the federal H-2A guest worker visa program. In addition to wages of $11.56 an hour, contractor Juan Vasquez would provide Chavez room, board and, crucially, a guarantee of free transportation from Mexico and back.
Whenever he could, Chavez dutifully wired money home. Then, on Nov. 6, 2015, tragedy struck.
Investigators allege that the bus wasn’t registered with the Labor Department — meaning the company was not authorized to use it to transport workers. The driver did not have a commercial operator’s license.
Schell, who’s been working with the victims’ families, says Vasquez should have had liability insurance of around $5 million, but that he carried only one-fifth that amount. The company’s workers’ compensation policy did not cover the journey home.
In the two years prior to the crash, Vasquez Citrus had been cited 22 times for alleged violations, from underage drivers to vehicles with worn tires, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The Labor Department had cited Juan Vasquez for failure to provide safe vehicles back in 2007, but issued no fines.
Lori Flores, a professor at Stony Brook University, calls the regulatory apparatus “an honor system.”
“And it’s only when accidents ... happen that agencies might get involved,” she says. “But then it’s way too late.”
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On Sept. 17, 1963, a makeshift bus carrying 58 migrant workers was struck by a freight train outside Chualar, Calif. Thirty-two workers died.
In the wake of Chualar, Congress passed a law requiring contractors to provide proof of liability insurance and to inform workers about housing, wages and transportation. Two decades later, lawmakers enacted the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, or MSPA, which, among other requirements, mandates that agricultural employers show that transportation is properly insured and meets safety standards.
More than 10,000 farm labor contractors are registered under MSPA, but Labor’s Wage and Hour Division has just 976 investigators to police them, plus the millions of other businesses covered by the laws it enforces.
That lack of manpower, combined with often minor penalties for infractions, encourages people to cut corners, farmworker advocates say.
“You end up saving money by just paying the fine and treating the farmworkers as disposable,” says Dawson Morton of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.
Violators are “aided and abetted” by the fact that most workers are too afraid of dismissal or deportation to complain, Schell says. Often, a record of non-compliance is discovered only after a crash.
On July 2, police say a 1979 school bus carrying dozens of Haitian farmworkers and family members blew through a flashing red light near the town of St. Marks, Fla., and was struck by a semi-truck. The truck driver and three on the bus were killed.
Unsecured seats were among 25 violations cited in post-accident inspections of farm labor contractor Billy R. Evans’ fleet. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration called the Belle Glade, Fla., contractor “an imminent risk of serious injury or death,” and ordered him off the roads.
The case remains under investigation. Neither Evans nor the driver responded to AP’s calls for comment.
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Most growers don’t provide transportation to their remote fields. So, many workers fall prey to so-called “raiteros,” who illegally charge desperate workers often exorbitant fees for unregulated transportation.
Two recent California cases show the challenges regulators face when trying to assign responsibility for an accident.
On Jan. 9, 2015, four men returning from the fields died when their overloaded van plowed into a tractor-trailer in Fresno County. Investigators concluded that the driver was a foreman for C.A.T. Labor Services, and Labor moved to revoke the firm’s certification.
Company attorney Anthony Raimondo insists the driver, who pleaded no contest in March to manslaughter, was solely responsible for this “horrible tragedy,” and that the accusations against his client were “paperwork violations.”
In another case, four farmworkers, including a 16-year-old girl, died when the van they were in crashed on June 20, 2015, in Merced County. Police say the unlicensed driver fell asleep at the wheel.
In August, Labor’s San Francisco office filed suit against grower Valley Garlic Inc. and contractor, X-Treme Ag Labor Inc., citing a 1997 federal court ruling that rejected the view that growers who use labor contractors have no responsibility themselves to make sure workers travel safely.
Both companies have denied wrongdoing. Janet Herold, West Regional Solicitor for the Department of Labor, says these legal actions are a message to the agricultural community that “we are going to change tools until you change practices.”
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In the crash that killed Jose Chavez, Labor Department inspectors recommended more than $500,000 in civil penalties, according to a draft settlement obtained by AP. A review knocked that recommendation down to $2,000.
Federal investigations continue. Despite that, Vasquez was authorized visas for nearly 350 guest workers this past year. The company did not reply to AP requests for comment.
Meanwhile, lawyers are wrangling over how to divide the limited insurance proceeds.
Jose’s wages helped his parents build a small but sturdy two-room concrete house. They had to borrow money to bury him.
Sitting before a portrait of her oldest boy, Maria Felix Chavez Martinez weeps.
“He was our only option,” she says. “The only hope we had.”
Crash by crash, a tally of recent migrant transport deaths
Here are details of recent traffic accidents involving migrant farmworkers:
- Jan. 9, 2015 — Four farmworkers died when their van struck a semitrailer in Fresno County, Calif. The driver, who was not a contracted farm labor driver, had nine people in a van rated for only eight. The driver pleaded no contest in March to manslaughter, and the U.S. Department of Labor has moved to revoke the farm labor certificate of his employer, C.A.T. Labor Services. The company’s attorney maintains his client did not arrange worker transportation.
- Jan. 13, 2015 — Five workers were killed in San Joaquin County, Calif., when the minivan they were in went through a stop sign in dense fog and was broadsided by a pickup truck. Police say neither of the drivers was licensed. Although the farm labor contractor was not held liable for the accident, the Labor Department fined him for unrelated transportation violations found at the same vineyard during its investigation.
- Feb. 3, 2015 — A migrant worker backed over and killed another with a school bus outside an Indiantown, Fla., restaurant. Investigators with the Florida Highway Patrol say the worker hopped behind the wheel of the bus when the regular driver didn’t show. He fled the scene but was later caught and charged.
- June 3, 2015 — Two were killed and 10 injured when a bus carrying H-2A workers failed to stop and crashed into the back of a semi on Interstate 10 near Weimar, Texas. The bus was taking about 30 workers from Laredo to the tobacco fields of North Carolina. Police reports say the driver, who died, did not have a commercial license.
- June 20, 2015 — Four workers, including a 16-year-old, died and five others were injured when the van they were in rolled in Merced County, Calif. Police say the workers were returning from a day in the fields when the unlicensed driver fell asleep, drifted off the road and overcorrected. The six passengers — who were unrestrained, in violation of California code — were ejected. The Department of Labor has sued the grower and the farm labor contractor, alleging they “turned a blind eye” to unsafe transportation practices.
- Aug. 12, 2015 — Twenty-two mainly Haitian workers were injured, four of them seriously, when the bus carrying them home from Georgia ran off Interstate 10 northwest of Tallahassee, Fla., and rolled over into a ditch. The bus, whose driver was operating on a suspended license, was carrying two fully charged, unsecured propane tanks. Authorities say that not only was the bus not properly registered or inspected, but that farm labor contractor GSH Labor Management had failed to purchase liability and worker’s compensation insurance. According to a state investigator, owner Gregorio Gonzalez told him, “I just did not have time to purchase this insurance before starting the harvest.” In an interview with the AP, Gonzalez denied saying that. However, all workers’ compensation claims were denied. The state has fined GSH $9,250 and says it will “refuse any renewal request or application” for a farm labor certificate.
- Sept. 1, 2015 — State police say a 36-passenger bus carrying 49 people was speeding when it ran off a road in Coffee County, Ga., overturned and came to rest on its roof in a creek, injuring more than two dozen. Police say Jesus Rubio Nevarez was driving “too fast for conditions.” The 1995 International bus was owned by WKI Outsourcing Solutions, whose federal farm labor certification had expired in May 2014. Although the labor contractor described himself as a crew leader for the grower, the Department of Labor found that the grower was not responsible. Thus far, the only repercussions from the accident were to Nevarez, who was cited for speeding and “failure to maintain lane.” He paid about $317 in fines. Daysie Zepeda, 19, who fractured her left elbow in the crash, said neither she nor any of the other workers she’s spoken with received any compensation.
- Sept. 8, 2015 — A 1995 International bus carrying 20 workers drifted off a two-lane road and rolled onto its side in White County, Ind. Of the 13 people hurt, 10 reported “incapacitating” injuries. The AP found that the bus’s owner had a history of alleged safety violations dating back to 2009. Records indicate that the insurance policy on the bus had expired in January 2015. Neither state nor federal labor officials investigated the accident.
- Sept. 21, 2015 — Twenty-six workers were injured when a semi-truck rear-ended their bus near Tarboro, N.C. Although it was not the bus driver’s fault, he was charged for not having a commercial driver’s license. State police said the bus, which is owned by a federal labor contractor, also lacked insurance.
- Sept. 28, 2015 — Three women were killed and four others injured when their minivan, making a U-turn, was hit by a dump truck in McFarland, Calif. The women were on their way to work in a vineyard. Officials say driver Zenaida Quintero-Reyes, who was among those killed, had a valid license.
- Nov. 6, 2015 — Six Mexican guest workers were killed and seven others injured when a bus traveling from Michigan to Texas struck an overpass on Interstate 40 north of Little Rock, Ark. Police say the driver Roberto Vasquez was fatigued; a DOL report said he “hit a bump and lost control.” An investigation determined that farm labor contractor Vasquez Citrus & Hauling had failed to have the bus inspected and was carrying less than a quarter of the required insurance. The company owner, who did not reply to a call from AP for comment, told investigators “he did not know that the worker’s compensation insurance did not cover the travel back to Mexico.”
- Dec. 1, 2015 — At least six people were injured when a van carrying 11 farmworkers failed to slow down and hit another car from behind in Copperopolis, Calif. According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the driver did not have a farm labor transportation certificate. The DMV said his license was suspended, “except in the course of employment.”
- Jan. 27, 2016 — A 1994 Blue Bird bus carrying 23 Haitian farmworkers went through a flashing light intersection in Belle Glade, Fla., and crashed into a pickup. Police say the Haitian immigrant driver, Elie Dupiche, did not stop to make sure that no other vehicles had entered the intersection. No one was seriously injured.
- May 13, 2016 — Three workers died when their pickup crossing railroad tracks was struck by an Amtrak train in Madera County, Calif. The crossing was on private farmland, and the truck was owned by Erickson Farms. Jim Erickson said the driver, a Mexican native, had been with his company more than 20 years and was “like a son to me.”
- June 18, 2016 — Six migrants — including a mother and her 5-year-old son — died when the van they were in hit another vehicle and flipped multiple times on Interstate 95 in Caroline County, Va. Ten others, including the driver, were injured. Police said the van’s occupants, all undocumented immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, had just finished harvesting blueberries in North Carolina and were on their way to do the same in New Jersey. Driver Wenceslao Cruz-Marquez, who authorities say did not have a driver’s license, has been charged with manslaughter. Investigations by Labor and the National Transportation Safety Board are ongoing.
- July 2, 2016 — Four people, including a 4-year-old boy, died when the 1979 Blue Bird school bus they were in allegedly ran a flashing red light and collided with a semi-truck in St. Marks, Fla. Both vehicles burst into flames. The driver of the truck and three people in the bus died. Another 25 people were injured, including bus driver Elie Dupiche, the same man involved in the Jan. 27 accident. Later that month, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Administration ordered farm labor contractor Billy R. Evans to immediately pull all of his vehicles off the road, saying he posed “an imminent risk of serious injury or death if your actions are not discontinued immediately.” Neither Evans nor Dupiche responded to AP’s calls for comment.
- Aug. 11, 2016 — Six workers were injured when the school bus transporting them caught fire on Highway 135 in Santa Barbara County, Calif. The California Highway Patrol said that when the bus began smoking, the driver slowed to about 5 mph, and the 28 people on board began jumping out. No citations were issued in that case. But the Department of Transportation has issued 288 safety citations against the bus owner in the past two years, including seven for “Acute/Critical Violations” in inspections following the fire.
This story was originally published December 24, 2016 at 5:08 AM with the headline "Unsafe transport leads to death: Farmworkers ‘disposable'?."