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June 16, 2008
Galt labor service idled
By News-Sentinel staff
The California Department of Industrial Relations has issued an order
prohibiting Solis Farm Labor Contractor — a Galt company — from
operating in the fields because of the company's alleged failure to
comply with heat illness regulations.
"We have evidence to suggest that this company has failed to train its
employees and this order will be in force until the company is in full
compliance with California heat illness prevention regulations,"
Industrial Relations Director John Duncan said in a prepared statement.
Solis Farm Labor Contractor was an employer at the Farmington vineyard
where Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, a 17-year-old Lodi farm worker,
became ill and later died on May 16 after working in high heat without
water or shade two days earlier.
Solis was identified in the course of the investigation into working
conditions at the vineyard where Jimenez was employed, according to a
news release from the Department of Industrial Relations.
Jimenez was employed by Merced Farm Labor, which the state put out of
business on Thursday for the same allegations as Solis.
California law requires outdoor employers to train supervisors and
employees about the symptoms of heat illness, have an emergency medical
assistance plan and provide shade and water to workers, according to the
Department of Industrial Relations.
In the ongoing investigation of the Jimenez case, investigators
uncovered evidence that led them to suspect that Solis Farm Labor
Contractor may be continuing to hire and place workers in unsafe and
unhealthful working conditions, and as a result issued the order to
prohibit use as a precaution, according to Industrial Relations.
In an enforcement sweep of more than 25 agricultural work sites in San
Joaquin County last week, investigators found numerous violations
including 10 employers without illness and injury prevention plans and
20 violations of the heat illness prevention standard, according to the
news release.
Similar sweeps of outdoor workplaces are conducted daily in most
California counties with special teams dispersed when temperatures rise
to 100 degrees or more, or when the Governor's Office of Emergency
Services State Warning Center issues a heat wave alert.
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