Family: National Farmworker Awareness Week Day 6

In November 2015, the EPA finalized important revisions to the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard, (WPS), which provides protections from pesticide poisoning and injury for farmworkers, pesticide handlers, and their families. Those highly overdue changes took effect January 2nd of this year. The last major revisions to the WPS occurred in 1992, lagging far behind changes in pesticide research and development, technological advancement, farmworker demographics, and workplace safety standards in other industries. Some of the changes include annual pesticide safety trainings for workers and (for the first time) a minimum age requirement (18) for all pesticide handlers.

Farmworkers come into contact with pesticides on a daily basis. The pesticide residues that remain on their work clothes and skin can expose their families and inadvertently put their health at risk.  If a worker experiences health problems caused or exacerbated by pesticide contact, application information, Safety Data Sheets, and accompanying application records are of vital importance. Under the WPS, workers have the right to access this information, and like workers in all other industries, they may designate a representative – such as a family member or lawyer – to seek the information in their stead. There are many reasons why a farmworker would need assistance in seeking this information, including language and other communication barriers, geographic distance and fear of reprisals from an employer.  Recent accounts of the new administration’s immigration enforcement actions in agricultural communities in Vermont, New York and other areas of the country have only increased workers’ reluctance to assert their workplace rights. By offering alternative channels for farmworkers – and potentially their family members – to assert their rights, the new WPS could improve and potentially save the lives of workers and their families.

In November 2015, the EPA finalized important revisions to the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard, (WPS), which provides protections from pesticide poisoning and injury for farmworkers, pesticide handlers, and their families. Those highly overdue changes took effect January 2nd of this year. The last major revisions to the WPS occurred in 1992, lagging far behind changes in pesticide research and development, technological advancement, farmworker demographics, and workplace safety standards in other industries. Some of the changes include annual pesticide safety trainings for workers and (for the first time) a minimum age requirement (18) for all pesticide handlers.

Farmworkers come into contact with pesticides on a daily basis. The pesticide residues that remain on their work clothes and skin can expose their families and inadvertently put their health at risk.  If a worker experiences health problems caused or exacerbated by pesticide contact, application information, Safety Data Sheets, and accompanying application records are of vital importance. Under the WPS, workers have the right to access this information, and like workers in all other industries, they may designate a representative – such as a family member or lawyer – to seek the information in their stead. There are many reasons why a farmworker would need assistance in seeking this information, including language and other communication barriers, geographic distance and fear of reprisals from an employer.  Recent accounts of the new administration’s immigration enforcement actions in agricultural communities in Vermont, New York and other areas of the country have only increased workers’ reluctance to assert their workplace rights. By offering alternative channels for farmworkers – and potentially their family members – to assert their rights, the new WPS could improve and potentially save the lives of workers and their families.