U.S. Leaning Against Rule on Sanitation : Labor Dept. Reluctant to Require Water, Toilets for Farm Workers

The U.S. Department of Labor is leaning against setting a standard that would require farm owners to provide toilet facilities and water for their workers, despite recommendations to the contrary from public health experts and its own staff, according to sources in the department.

A federal court has directed the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration to state by Tuesday whether it thinks a field sanitation standard is warranted. Groups working on behalf of farm workers have been pressing OSHA to promulgate such a standard since 1972, but the agency has resisted.

OSHA spokesman Jim Foster said Thursday that no official decision has been made. However, according to one OSHA source, who asked not be identified: “No decision has been made officially, but all the work is being done on killing it (the proposed standard).”

Under the standard OSHA has been considering, farm owners employing more than 11 persons would be required to provide suitable drinking water, toilets and facilities for washing hands. Thirteen states--including California--have laws requiring farm owners to provide toilets and water, but their enforcement is spotty, according to Charles Horowitz, a staff attorney with the Migrant Legal Action Program in Washington.

High Rate of Disease

Public health experts have told OSHA officials that there is a compelling need for a field sanitation standard. Because their employers frequently refuse to provide them with toilets or water to drink or wash with, more than half a million American farm workers suffer rates of infection and disease comparable to those of Third World peasants, according to a report done by Dr. Eugene Gangarosa of Atlanta’s Emory University for OSHA last September.

Additionally, five of the seven members of OSHA’s field sanitation team sent the agency’s acting director, Robert Rowland, a memo two weeks ago in response to his request that they find that no standard need be issued.

“We . . . must advise you, in our professional opinion, that the record will not support such a determination,” the memo declared.

A Labor Department source who favors adoption of a standard said Thursday that he hopes increased public attention to the issue will prompt Labor Secretary-designate William E. Brock III to direct OSHA officials not to kill the standard, but, rather, to ask the federal court for a delay so that he does not inherit a major controversy as soon as he enters office.

Congressman’s Warning

On Wednesday, Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, sent a letter to William Morris, director of Brock’s Labor Department transition team, warning him that there would be negative consequences if Brock acquiesced in Rowland’s reported decision to scrap the standard.

“Not only will it be a political mistake for this Administration not to issue a sanitation standard for farm workers of this nation, but it is an unnecessary black eye for Mr. Brock as he takes the reins over at Labor.”

Spokesmen for Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) said that the senators plan to ask Brock about the field sanitation issue in his forthcoming confirmation hearings.

The Times was unable to reach Brock or Morris for comment.

Times staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this story.