Have you ever visited a botanical garden on a warm spring day and marveled at tulips in a rainbow of colors, with shapes ranging from cups to stars, contrasting striations, and ruffled edges?Now’s your chance to bring a taste of that awes
13.06.2023 - 12:37 / modernfarmer.com
For the past two years, farmworkers in California’s Sonoma County have been advocating for stronger labor laws to protect them from the impacts of climate change-fueled disasters, including wildfires, floods and heat waves.
In February, their efforts bore fruit. When residents, including many farmworkers, lost work due to weeks of rainstorms, the county agreed to spend one third of a $3-million disaster relief fund to provide impacted individuals with one-time, $600 payments.
While the fund wasn’t large enough to cover all of the workers’ losses, its creation was a big win, according to Aura Aguilar, an organizer with North Bay Jobs with Justice, a local coalition of labor and community groups leading the campaign.
For the farmworkers advocating for the disaster relief, “it was a really big deal to be able to access these funds and to see the results of their hard work and their fight be seen on a countywide level,” says Aguilar.
The creation of the fund fits into a larger movement pushing for stronger protection and compensation for workers impacted by climate change-fueled disasters. In addition to disaster reimbursements, advocates are pushing for improved social safety net programs for vulnerable workers, hazard pay for those working during climate disasters and greater workplace protections for those impacted by heat, rain or polluted air.
In March, a month after Sonoma County decided to distribute $1 million, the state announced plans for a statewide program to pay undocumented individuals impacted by the storms. However, it ultimately didn’t begin until early June.
Michael Méndez, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, who has studied the health effects of wildfires on farmworkers, says
Have you ever visited a botanical garden on a warm spring day and marveled at tulips in a rainbow of colors, with shapes ranging from cups to stars, contrasting striations, and ruffled edges?Now’s your chance to bring a taste of that awes
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