Re: POLITICS California bans hand pulling of weeds

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/28/04 9:03:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

teresa.blazey@... writes:

They used to issue them short-handled hoes, but that was made illegal

because it was, well, back-breaking. I guess the growers then didn't

give the workers anything, so they still had to stoop down the rows.

How embarassing. Hope they got it right this time.

_____

~~~~> So were the long-handled hoes too expensive or something? Is this on

really big farms only? I've worked on a small farm and landscaping, and I'm

trying to make this jive with my experience and can't. I guess I can see on a

farm with hundreds or thousands of workers they could save money on hundreds or

thousands of hoes, but I'm not sure if any farms employ that many people. (?)

And what a dumbass farm, anyway. The workers would get much more done much

faster if they had proper equipment, and save the farm money.

Chris

[Guest guest]

Here you go:

Weeding California Fields

The short-handled hoe, known as el cortito, was banned in California

in 1975, the same year that the state enacted the Agricultural Labor

Relations Act that gave farm workers organizing and collective

bargaining rights. Workers were prohibited from using short-handled

hoes--those with handles less than four feet-- for weeding and

thinning crops because of the damage stooping causes to workers'

backs. At the time, farmers argued that workers closer to the ground

did more careful work, and some tried to get around the ban by issuing

workers short-handled knives, promoting a 1978 ban on all

short-handled tools.

However, the 1975 ban does not apply to hand weeding, and some farmers

are reportedly providing workers with no hoes when sending them to

fields. According to CRLA activists, some employers prefer to have

workers bending as they work in order to more easily determine who is

working.

The Department of Industrial Relation's Division of Occupational

Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) opposes the ban on hand weeding as an

unfunded mandate that would be difficult to enforce. Labor law

enforcers in the Targeted Industries Protection Program assert that

hand-weeding is not a serious problem.

In the California legislature, Senate Bill 587, which would ban hand

weeding, was approved in committee despite the opposition of Farm

Bureau and other farm organizations, who argued that in nurseries,

hand weeding is necessary.

CRLA, which brought the suit that led to the banning of the

short-handled hoe, is under threat of Congressional defunding.

California Rural Legal Assistance, an organization with 50 lawyers

around the state, gets 70 percent of its $7 million annual budget from

the Legal Services Corporation.

Fred Alvarez, " Farm Worker Advocates dig in against Hand Weeding, " Los

Angeles Times, May 22, 1995; Kerry Benson, " Hand Weeding ban moves

through Senate, " Ag Alert, May 17, 1995.

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:21:27 EDT, chrismasterjohn@...

<chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

> In a message dated 9/28/04 9:03:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

> teresa.blazey@... writes:

> They used to issue them short-handled hoes, but that was made illegal

> because it was, well, back-breaking. I guess the growers then didn't

> give the workers anything, so they still had to stoop down the rows.

> How embarassing. Hope they got it right this time.

> _____

>

> ~~~~> So were the long-handled hoes too expensive or something? Is this on

> really big farms only? I've worked on a small farm and landscaping, and I'm

> trying to make this jive with my experience and can't. I guess I can see on a

> farm with hundreds or thousands of workers they could save money on hundreds

or

> thousands of hoes, but I'm not sure if any farms employ that many people. (?)

>

> And what a dumbass farm, anyway. The workers would get much more done much

> faster if they had proper equipment, and save the farm money.

>

> Chris

>

>

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/28/04 10:07:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

stordock@... writes:

Sure " they " got it right. What are you doing weeding by hand anyways???

That is a job for " our " wonderful herbicides that you are scientifically

cajoled and

encouraged to use. : P

_____

~~~~~> It would be awfully silly to think the employee doing the job and the

employer that created the job would have a better idea of the proper way of

doing the job than the government official who doesn't have anything to do the

job, except to tax it, anyway. Obviously the government official knows best

regardless of the job in question.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/28/04 9:38:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

teresa.blazey@... writes:

Here you go:

____

Thanks! LOL! I'd like to see the California legislature come up with some

tool to make me use to tighten put the doors and tighten the bolts on our curb

forms to prevent me from stooping and doing it with my hands. What would it

look like, I wonder?

Chris