Plea bargain in farmworker's death; Union plans more protests

[The Straight Story]

MADERA, CA (AP) -- A day before she started work pruning grapevines in a California vineyard, 17-year-old Maria Isavel Vasquez Jimenez called her family in Mexico, giddy about her first job in the U.S. and the paycheck she would soon be wiring home.

Three days later, the pregnant teen fell to the ground after working in 100-degree heat. Maria Isavel and her unborn child later succumbed to heat stroke from laboring more than nine hours in a San Joaquin County vineyard.

A judge in Stockton was expected to accept a plea deal Wednesday from the teen's employers -- the owner and safety director of contractor Merced Farm Labor.

Maria Isavel's death has become a symbol of a system gone wrong, outraging the farmworker community and leading to the first ever criminal case over a farmworker's heat-related death in the country.




http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=127317&catid=2

[Tumbulu]

1. Farm workers do not get paid overtime until they have worked

over 60 hrs in a week. And this is physically demanding work in often very hard to deal with weather.

The Calif legislature passed a bill to bring it to 40 hrs/wee, but Arnie vetoed it.

Until farm labor across the entire country is made more humane, these terrible things will continue.

And it is the day to day stuff- these exhausted workers come home to children who need help with their homework.....it just goes on and on.

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Yep, just got a mailing from the United Farm Workers...

I will be sending a small donation. Are you in?

[Tumbulu]

3. Yes, I just paid for one worker

to go to Sacramento to lobby on behalf of others.