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Should deaths in the vineyard be on wine drinkers' consciences?
Friday, July 18, 2008
By the time she arrived at the hospital, Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez was in a coma, her body temperature above 108 degrees. The 17-year-old farmworker — who was two months pregnant and had been tying grapevines in a wine vineyard in searing California heat on May 14 — died two days later.
Maria's death has triggered protests, investigations and soul-searching — but it hasn't stopped others from dying. Just last week, California's Occupational Safety and Health agency announced it was investigating the death of a 42-year-old male farm laborer who had spent the morning loading boxes of table grapes onto a truck in another California vineyard in 108-degree heat and who later in the day became ill and died.
The 17-year-old was stricken in a vineyard co-owned by the same family that produces Charles Shaw wines — better known as "Two-Buck Chuck." A spokeswoman for national grocery chain Trader Joe's — which sells Charles Shaw wines exclusively and operates a store in Kettering — has said the vineyard where Maria was working does not supply grapes for Charles Shaw wines. Still, the United Farm Workers union has launched a campaign asking Trader Joe's to toughen its vendor policies.
On Uncorked (at www.daytondailynews.com/wineblog) earlier this week, we posed the question: Are vineyard deaths the price we pay for cheap wine? Presumably, stricter oversight of workplace conditions, along with shorter shifts, more frequent breaks and other steps that would reduce the possibility of vineyard workers suffering heat-related illnesses, would add cost to the production of wine, at a time when the rising price of fuel and other factors are pressuring wine prices. Are wine drinkers willing to pay the price?
Reader Bruce said the incidences of heat exhaustion and heatstroke among farmworkers suggest "that their employers are not providing sufficient preventative measures such as water, break time, shade, etc., to enable the workers to protect themselves. ... The California OSHA should fully investigate and take the necessary action against the employers involved to prevent this in the future. If the price of wine increases, so be it. Vineyard workers deserve better."
Reader Marty Lou said, "It's truly sad to think that agricultural workers are still being subjected to such unsavory business practices. ... We should demand better by being willing to pay more for what we do buy, and by foregoing purchases from those producers that do not provide safe working conditions for their farmworkers."
But another reader, Arthur, said, "Vineyard owners contract with companies who bring in workers. The vineyard owners pay these companies what is essentially an industry standard rate. These companies then pay their workers (pregnant or not, elderly and feeble or not and legal or not) whatever they have agreed upon. Everything else they keep for operating costs (?) and profit. You can pay $5, $10 or $20 per bottle of Charles Shaw, but unless the increased revenue is passed down to the laborers you are lining the pockets of those who already are not lacking. Paying more for a bottle of wine will not do anything to help those workers."
To read a California vineyard owner's take on the issue and several other comments, go to www.daytondailynews.com/wineblog.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2258 or mfisher@DaytonDailyNews.com.
