The Latina-o-x community makes up the great majority of Washington State’s agricultural workers. As a community of color, culturally and linguistically distinct, it is no accident this critical labor force faces chronic unsafe working conditions, harassment, and economic exploitation. During the pandemic, Congress passed a law to protect workers who got sick. However, many agricultural employers engaged in campaigns to rid workers rumored to have spread COVID.
Beatriz Amezcua worked at a fruit packing plant in Eastern Washington when the COVID pandemic hit. A dedicated worker, she pulled 16-hour shifts to help get the company through and to support her fellow workers.
Beatriz was a victim of workplace spread but she was targeted as its cause. She and a number of other workers were fired for getting sick. When this happened, in June 2020, Latinos made-up 13% of Washington’s population but 42% of COVID cases.
Beatriz knew what happened to her and her fellow workers was an injustice and sought help. The Northwest Justice Project’s Farmworker Unit (NJP-FWU), which exists to vindicate the legal rights of agricultural workers, agreed to represent her in filing a complaint to the Washington State Human Rights Commission. But in late 2021, the Commission dismissed the case without taking any action against the employer. NJP-FWU then represented Beatriz in bringing a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of Washington in Spokane under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
After lengthy litigation Beatriz prevailed. She received compensation for the injustice and loss of income, and the company agreed to significantly change its sick leave policies (applicable beyond COVID). This included ending a point system that fired workers once they accrued a certain number of points for health-related absences. Such policies had created an atmosphere of fear that encouraged workers to tough-out sick situations—contributing to the spread of disease and harming workers’ health.
Although working conditions improved at her employer, and the worst of the pandemic over, the unjust working conditions inflicted on Latina-o-x agricultural workers across Washington persist: low wages, crowded housing, and unsafe working conditions in fields and factories. The climate crisis is worsening health and safety risks. Farmworkers are already about 35 times more likely to die from heat than other workers and the climate crisis is projected to double the number of dangerously hot workdays by 2050.
Washington’s farmworkers, who together fuel the state’s $6 billion agricultural industry, have a long history of fighting for justice, both individually and collectively.
NJP’s Farmworker Unit, centered in Yakima, supports that fight through providing legal advice, legal representation, and community education to farmworkers and their families. Its legal advocacy addresses workplace health and safety, sexual harassment and employment discrimination, wage theft, enforcement of protections within the H-2A temporary worker program, combating human trafficking, and equal access to state and federal programs.
Here, Beatriz tells her story.