Groups mobilize to aid Ventura County farmworkers during the Thomas Fire

On Friday, as firefighters battled the growing Thomas Fire, much of Ventura County’s large agricultural operations kept humming. Strawberries were picked, celery was pulled and fields were plowed.

Read more:Thomas Fire live updates

At least some of the labor was done by farmworkers wearing none of the protective gear suggested for those working in the polluted air. That’s even as the skies near and above them were cloudy with smoke.

Since Wednesday, Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy and the Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project have been working to change that. 

They distributed more than 750 snug-fitting N95 respirator masks Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday set out to pass out 500 more. Although most farms accepted the masks and, in some cases, thanked volunteers with fresh fruit and vegetables, others refused and asked the volunteers to leave. 

Read more:Air quality plummets because of Ventura County fire, especially in Ojai Valley

“We’re just trying to help,” said Raul Lopez, an Oxnard community organizer with CAUSE. “We’re not asking for anything. We don’t want anything. We just want to give the masks and move on.”

At a strawberry farm off Hueneme Road in Oxnard, the mayordomo (foreman) stopped Lopez and volunteers Amelia Realzola and Jennifer Lopez from giving the roughly 20 workers masks until a supervisor arrived. He told a farmworker who asked for a mask to wait until their superiors approved it. 

After much back-and-forth, the supervisor grudgingly accepted two boxes of masks. 

Read more:Smoky air sends people to region's emergency rooms

The encounter left Realzola, a senior at Hueneme High School, agrey.

“For you to disregard your worker right in front of us, that’s not right,” she said later.

Realzola has farmworkers in her family, as does Raul Lopez. In the field workers' faces they see their family members. Lopez's farmworker parents had him and his siblings work summers in the fields to understand what it was like.

Other volunteers relayed experiences similar to the one that happened in Oxnard. One man who refused the masks insisted the workers had already been offered and refused them. But Juvenal Solano, an organizer with MICOP, later spoke with employees there who said that hadn't happened.

On Wednesday, the state Division of Occupational Health and Safety Administration released an advisory letting employers know that special precautions “must" be taken to protect workers.

“Smoke from wildfires contains chemicals, gases and fine particles that can harm health,” the advisory states. “The greatest hazard comes from breathing fine particles, which can reduce lung function, worsen asthma and other existing heart and lung conditions, and cause coughing, wheezing and difficulty breathing.”

Cal/OSHA advises limiting the amount of time a worker spends outdoors, providing workers with respiratory protective equipment and taking other measures. The division has been actively responding to complaints and accidents since the fire started, spokesperson Erika Monterroza said.

“It’s the employer that has to assess the situation and take the appropriate measures,” she said. “We don’t have prescriptive measures. It’s all depending on the hazards that exist in the workplace at any given time.”

Monterroza could not say how many complaints had come in, if any, because Cal/OSHA does not release that information. Cal/OSHA has up to six months to investigate a complaint, she said.

The Farm Bureau of Ventura County posted Cal/OSHA’s alert about workplace safety on its Facebook page, Executive Director John Krist said.

“In a perfect world with no other consideration, they wouldn’t be out there,” he said.

But there are thousands of area farmworkers, many of whom are reluctant to give up a day without pay because they don’t have masks, he said. For growers, the crops in some cases need to be harvested before ash ruins them.

Many growers don’t have masks on hand, so getting workers the necessary equipment takes time, Krist said. As of early Friday afternoon, the Farm Bureau was waiting on a shipment of masks from the California Strawberry Commission. Then it will figure out the best way to distribute them, Krist said.

Krist said some owners have a policy to not let strangers onto their property.

“In certain circumstances, they’ll fall to that default response,” he said.

Oxnard City Council member Carmen Ramirez said she couldn't make employers do anything but she hoped they would treat their workers fairly. The city closed its offices because of the poor air quality, she said.

“Let’s just do the right thing for the people who are really out there doing the hard work,” said Ramirez, who had reached out to county officials about the situation. “I would assume the growers want to have a healthy workforce.”

Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner Henry Gonzales said he said sent an alert to all growers from the county’s public health officer about the conditions and precautions to take. 

“It’s a very difficult situation; most folks can see that. What the answers are, I don’t believe are very apparent,” Gonzales said.

He said moved his staff from Santa Paula to a Camarillo location because of the smoke. But how a grower responds is “really their call and their situation,” he said, adding that he has no jurisdiction to tell them what to do or what measures to take.   

Metabolic Studio, an organization out of Los Angeles, donated 500 masks, said Red Rotkopf. His organization easily found the masks in Los Angeles. "It needed to happen. People are choking up here, especially indigent farmworkers," he said.

Rotkopf said he received a positive reception at farms he visited around Ojai, where he estimated he had given out 70 to 100 masks within a few hours.

CAUSE Board President Gaye Theresa Johnson said she hoped employers would step up. Low-wage earners will be particularly impacted by the fire because they often lack the safeguards higher earners have, she said.

 “It’s just the height of insult to people who provide us with food every day,” she said. “To see people prioritize property over human life is just terrible.”

See an issue? Call Cal/OSHA at 844-522-6734. The number is monitored 24 hours a day, Monterroza said.