Speak of the Devil

In Spanish it is called el brazo de Diablo-- the devil’s arm . It is the short-handled hoe, and it brings only pain to farm workers who use it. Outlawed for weeding and thinning crops, it is still sometimes used for planting and for help in putting plastic covers over plants to keep them warm. It should be banned altogether so that there is no doubt where the state stands on its legality. And now an advisory group, including both farm labor and management representatives, is unanimously recommending just such an outright ban. The standards board of California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration should heed that recommendation when it meets Thursday in San Francisco.

The advisory group was convened after Cal-OSHA misguidedly considered allowing the use of the short-handled hoe for five minutes of every hour. If using the hoe, which puts enormous strain on a worker’s back, is harmful for 55 minutes out of 60, it is harmful for the full hour. It would have been virtually impossible to enforce such a time limit. Now the advisory panel--which includes the Western Growers Assn., the California Farm Bureau and the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Assn.--is suggesting that the hoe and any other short-handled tools that require workers to stoop, kneel or squat to work be unconditionally banned and that long-handled tools be used in the manner intended.

The recommendations are sound ones, and should be adopted and then enforced vigorously.