Closing a Disgraceful Chapter

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has remedied 14 years of neglect by the Department of Labor and mandated federal standards for potable water and toilets for farm workers in the fields. The decision is a good one--crisply clear, consistent with other federal moves over recent years to provide minimum protections for the work force in the United States.

Secretary of Labor William E. Brock III resisted the imposition of federal regulations in October, 1985, arguing instead for an 18-month test under which such regulation would be left to the states. California and 18 other states have regulations covering, one way or another, working conditions in the fields. From the start, however, Brock’s delay was without justification, and last February he gave indications that he had come to recognize the inadequacy of the response from at least some of the states. He had been expected to move in April to issue federal regulations giving to farm workers what all other workers have under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Some in the Reagan Administration are moving in a different direction, unfortunately, eager to appeal the decision of the court. The mandate for federal regulations is seen by them as undermining the new federalism that President Reagan has espoused. Furthermore, some federal officials still argue that the sanitation problem in the fields is not serious enough to justify new regulations--a posture that ignores the health risks.

The court split 2 to 1 on the decision. Chief Judge Patricia Wald, writing for the majority, affirmed that the record “demonstrates beyond dispute that lack of drinking water and toilets causes the spread of contagion, bladder disease and heat prostration among farm workers.” Nevertheless, she noted, “resistance to issuing the standard, a counterpart of which is already in place for every other OSHA-covered type of employment, has been intractable.”

She expressed what is so obvious--that the time has come to put an end to what has been a “disgraceful chapter of legal neglect.”