Shame of the Harvest

The Department of Labor has made a serious mistake in refusing once again to establish federal standards for working conditions on American farms. The need for federal sanitation standards had been demonstrated beyond all doubt.

This is an issue of public health. Many farm workers have been reduced to Third World peasant circumstances, with significantly higher incidences of parasitic diseases, diarrhea, chemical exposure, skin rashes and heat stresses than are found in the population as a whole. These high incidences of disease and disability have been directly traced to the conditions under which so many farm workers toil. This in turn poses a peril to the entire population through contamination of the crops being picked and processed, according to public health experts.

The proposed standards were minimal, requiring access to drinking water, hand-washing facilities and toilets. Only farms with 11 or more workers would have come under provisions of the federal standards, meaning that about 529,000 farm workers--or roughly 15% of the total--would have been covered. But that would have been better than nothing, and would have served to prod smaller farms into adopting higher standards.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the Department of Labor estimated the cost at 55 to 80 cents a day per employee. Some growers said that it would have been more. That is beside the point. It is clear that the only thing that cannot be afforded is perpetuation of this threat to the health of workers, of the communities where they work, and of consumers. And it is equally clear that even in the 13 states--among them California--where some standards are established by law, enforcement has been uneven and often inadequate.

Those concerned about public health must encourage the newly designated secretary of labor, William E. Brock III, to correct this regrettable error as his first priority.