Her name was Maria, 17 and expecting when she died (they refused to take her to the hospital)

[Omaha Steve]

My first political action was asking my mom and dad not to buy grapes in the 60's. Going door to door for Bobby Kennedy was next. I've never changed. See my avatar on the left about Nixon and look it up. I see Maria every time I drink wine.




I only buy UFW approved wine btw: http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=organizing&inc=orga_label.html

Yes I hit the Cabernet bottle tonight.


http://action.ufw.org/page/s/MariaIsabel

17-year old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez died in 2008 while laboring in the grape vineyards. Her death is hard to accept because it didn’t need to happen. It appears basic heat laws were not observed by the labor contractors, who are accused of failing to provide Jimenez with access to a nearby source of drinking water, shade from the sun, training in how to recognize symptoms of heat illness, and swift medical attention. Maria’s temperature reached 108 degrees on a day California's occupational safety agency issued a heat-danger warning to employers.

There was a crucial court hearing on, Thursday, July 29, on the circumstances surrounding Maria’s death. The judge was expected to decide whether the case against three people charged with felonies for contributing to Maria Isabel’s death would proceed to trial. He also could have weighed in on whether the ex-farm labor contractors will face jail time if convicted. At the defence's request, the judge delayed the hearing until October.

The family strongly feels anyone found responsible for 17-year-old Maria Isabel’s death should be jailed. The UFW is doing all we can to support the family and asks you to lend your support. Please sign the pledge to do what you can to ensure that the people responsible for Maria’s death are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Let Maria’s family know that people throughout the nation are standing with them.


PLEASE take the pledge at the link!

[mmonk]

1. Recommended.

Thanks for the link.

[SoCalDem]

9. Heat prostration in a different pregnant woman.,. me

I was about 5 months pregnant and stupidly, decided to go sunbathe on our deck.. I was lolling on a lounge chair when the phone rang.. I jumped up to get the phone, and when I got inside the kitchen the A/C hit me and the sudden jump-up, the heat & the AC knocked me OUT.. I went down like Joe Frazier..

Luckily the person on the phone was my best friend/next-door-neighbor who heard me hit the floor unconscious... She hot footed it next door & drag-carried me to her car & took me to the ER..

I was admitted and kept overnight for observation.. and got a royal chewing out from my OB-Gyn..

I was fine..the baby was fine.. and oh yes.. I had insurance

That was also the last time I ever "sunbathed"..:)

[mmonk]

12. Wow.

I guess the phone call was both good and bad. No sun bathing sense? Probably best I guess.

[SoCalDem]

13. I was stupid.. and lucky..

:)

[mmonk]

14. We'll go with lucky.

:)

[Liberal_in_LA]

44. You were lucky you fainted with phone in hand! n/t

[SoCalDem]

48. I was lucky it was Alice on the phone..

:)

[vanbean]

53. You mean the OB-Gyn didn't spread his love?

:hi:

[SoCalDem]

57. Not that bastard.. He had the bedside manner of Atilla the Hun

:)

[Dappleganger]

2. K&R, in memory of my grandfather who died of a heart attack in a cotton field

which he was sharecropping. He left behind a heartbroken 6 yr. old little girl (my mother), a number of other children and a wife with no other means of support. They went on welfare immediately afterwards.

[Liberal_in_LA]

45. +1

[truedelphi]

3. It's not just that Maria died from the heat (That can happen to anyone.) It's that

Rather than take the time and spend the money to get her an ambulance and send her to the hospital for treatment, she was brought into a "Cooling shed" where she was held for ninety minutes before getting any real type of emergency medical care.

By then it was too late.

Her employers should definitely suffer in court. I wouldn't mind seeing a murder two rap go down against them.

[stevenleser]

Happy to agree with you here. Depraved indifference, Murder 2. n/t

[stevenleser]

38. Happy to agree with you here. Depraved indifference, Murder 2. n/t

[Permanut]

4. Done, K'd and R'd

Thanks for the thread, and the tribute to Maria.

[GoCubsGo]

5. K & R, and thanks for the link to the list

I knew there was a reason I like Columbia Crest wines.

[iamtechus]

6. Real men don't let things like that happen to wives and daughters

The foreman and the owner should have died that day.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. "real men"...

are sometimes powerless to stop it

[Maru Kitteh]

35. Just as they did with the slaves in the south, families are deliberately separated for work

[Omaha Steve]

7. 5 search pages about Maria

http://www.ufw.org/_search_result.php?key=Maria+Isabel+Vasquez+Jimenez+&x=41&y=5

Heat
SB1474, CA Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers
Funeral of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez/Funeral de Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez
Contra Costa Times: Protect farmworkers
SF Bay Guardian: Bucking off Chuck - Death of 17-year-old pregnant farm worker incites campaign against Trader Joe's
KCRA: Heat Claims Life of Another Farm Worker - 64-Year-Old Man Died On 110-Degree Day
NPR: California Checks On Farmworkers In Heat Wave
Alternet: How Many More Workers Will We Let Die in the Fields This Summer?
KRCA: Family Of Dead Farmworker Plans Lawsuit
Stockton Record: Teen worker's death probed
News10.net: Farmworker's Service Attended by Governor
News10.net: Contractor Investigated in Farmworker's Death was Cited in Past
Associated Press: County officials begin criminal probe into farmworker death
Sacramento Bee: Teen farmworker's death, probed as heat-related, stirs outcry
Stockton Record: Grief and anger - Boyfriend says farm laborer, just 17, died amid illegal work conditions
Associated Press: Mexico blames California employer for death of vineyard worker
News10.net: Farmworker "Peregrinacion" Ends At State Capitol
Sacramento Bee: Employer of farmworker who died had been fined for violations in 2006
Sacramento Bee: Editorial - A tragedy in the farm fields is all too familiar
CBS 5: Officials Investigate Lodi Farmworker's Death (video)
Lodi News-Sentinel: 500 march on behalf of fallen teen farm worker
Modesto Bee: Farmers must share in keeping workers safe
Stockton Record: One step at a time
Stockton Record: Pilgrimage honors farm worker

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

[Panaconda]

8. K&R n/t

Solidarity

[Odin2005]

10. OMG!

:cry:

[Ken Burch]

25. Show this to anyone who says we DON'T NEED UNIONS anymore!

As the Swede said:

"Don't Mourn...Organize!"

[WinkyDink]

29. Oh, they still won't care. After all, THEY don't need a union.

[stevenleser]

39. Absolutely. The less Unions are supported, the more things like this will happen. n/t

[Starry Messenger]

11. k & r

Thank you for that link!

[handmade34]

15. thanks Steve for the link

and all the work you do

[slay]

16. Glad to K&R

we need to make a more just world so these things don't happen. :(

and so that we all don't all end up as corporate slaves.

[Withywindle]

17. Kick for Maria.

And thank you so much for the link to the union winery list; I will definitely use it. I wish it was longer.

[awoke_in_2003]

19. you load 16 tons and what do you get? nt

[mackerel]

20. I was there in Lodi the day she died.

Not only was it hot that whole week but there was zero visibility as forest fires had ravaged the state. She was severely dehydrated too. Standing room only at her funeral mass.

[awoke_in_2003]

21. Please note that I am not making light...

of this situation. I am trying to bring up a point- the rich and powerful are willing to let anybody die to achieve their goal: make more money. The "16 Tons" reference goes back to Appalachian coal miners- of which I am separated by just 2 generations and a bit of luck. Here is Tennessee Ernie Ford:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU

[WinkyDink]

30. I'm a coal-miner's daughter (PA); I hear ya. And "willing to let anybody die" is why I wear a 9/11

tin-foil-hat, IYKWIM.
"Anybody" means ANYBODY.

[awoke_in_2003]

56. I still have a lot of family

in the hills of PA. Haven't seen them in some time. The people in those hills are good, hardworking people, in my experience.

[dflprincess]

40. Never took it as making light

but I'm old enough to remember Tennessee Ernie Ford. When I was very young I didn't understand the song but I'm old enough (way past old enough) to get the injustice and truth he was singing about.

[rhett o rick]

43. Dont the coal miners of 2010 still owe their souls to the company store? Or is it the credit card

corporations?

[InvisibleTouch]

49. It was one of my very favorite songs as a kid.

I didn't realize what it was about until many years later.

[awoke_in_2003]

55. Somehow I missed...

reading "The Grapes of Wrath" in high school. Picked it up a couple months ago, and put it down 12 hours later (couldn't stop reading). I didn't realize this happened to the "Oakies" too.

[Pushed To The Left]

22. K&R, and pledge signed! n/t

[Enthusiast]

23. K&R

Workers must be treated with common decency. WTF?

[myrna minx]

24. K&R for Maria. n/t

[TBF]

26. K&R nt

[dotymed]

27. Who says we don't

live in a third world country? We may spend on "defense" like a drunken sailor, but our people are disposable
Really, we don't even have (and are not even close to it) universal health care. For starters...

[flpab]

28. thank you

Glad to see my fav wine made the list but did send on to my brother who has a wine bar.

[Joe Bacon]

31. My grandfather cries.

Grandpa Bacon was the field marshall for the Steelworkers Organizing Committee that established the United Steel Workers in Aliquippa and Ambridge PA. If he were still alive he'd be crying at how his beloved unions have been crippled by the Republicans he so despised.

You bet I took the action the UFW asked for. And I also sent a note to Harry Reid asking where the card check bill is and why hasn't it been passed!

[TheEuclideanOne]

32. I just signed the petition

Thanks for the link

[orbitalman]

33. Ditto. nt

[femrap]

34. K and R

fucking greedy assholes. She should have been in school...anywhere but there.

[Citizen Worker]

36. Thank you Omaha Steve for posting this. I went to the UFW site, signed the Pledge and using the UFW

website forwarded to ten friends. Have already heard back from two.

In Solidarity,

CW

[pansypoo53219]

37. now i feel better about not drinking CA wine.

i don't eat many grapes. prefer aussie or other wine.

[ceile]

41. Signed for Maria and those like her.

[AuntPatsy]

42. Another american tradegy that should never have been .......K&R

[Joe Chi Minh]

46. K&R

[bdamomma]

47. done

[bobburgster]

50. The poor girl.....

was probably too scared to mention anything. I sure hope they get jail time, but the way things are now it wouldn't surprise me if they got off. :(

[Omaha Steve]

51. Now we know the real cost of 2 Buck Chuck (Charles shaw) wine

Lost lives.

[bertman]

52. Very sad and tragic. Thanks for posting this, Steve. Rec. nt

[northoftheborder]

54. Criminal neglect.