theintercept--2020-09-06--In California’s Wine Country, Undocumented Grape Pickers Forced to Work in Fire Evacuation Zones

billowed into the wine-producing region of Sonoma County , California , workers continued harvesting grapes , day and night .
Even in evacuation zones , where the safety threat from flames was severe enough for officials to ask residents to leave the area , the county agriculture commissioner invited workers to continue laboring in the fields , doling out evacuation-area access passes to dozens of agricultural producers .
With undocumented immigrants — many of them workers from Latin American Indigenous communities — already economically drained after surviving months of the pandemic with virtually no government support , workers were in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work .
For the workers , their hands were forced by a combination of circumstances as toxic as the ash that falls over the region ’ s famous vineyards : the economic drive to keep the wine industry going ; the lack of resources for non-Spanish-speaking workers ; a near-total dearth of economic support ; the economic stresses of the coronavirus pandemic ; and a climate of fear around immigration enforcement that prevents the workers from asking for help .
What ’ s needed more than anything , advocates say , is an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so that people don ’ t have to accept perilous work and changes to immigration laws , so they don ’ t have to fear offers of help .
“ We work when there are rains , we work when there is fire , we work in whatever conditions .
It isn ’ t the most viable , but it is a necessity to provide for our families here or the parts of our families that stayed in our place of origin , ” said Gervacio Peña Lopez , a board member of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cultural de la Unión Indígena , who is Mixtec and worked in the fields for years .
“ There is no resource we can count on , so there ’ s nothing left but to work.
” Officials that regulate evacuation order exemptions have close relationships to agricultural associations that serve local business owners ’ interests .
Over four years of massive wildfires , the wine region ’ s agricultural commissioners worked closely with the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and Sonoma County Winegrowers to repeatedly grant permission to growers to harvest in wildfire-evacuation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the delicate flavor of the region ’ s world-famous wines .
The threat of deep financial losses creates a pressing incentive to harvest as quickly as possible , even when fire and smoke risk damage to lungs — and especially during a year when yields are expected to be lower than usual and the pandemic cut down restaurant sales .
During the Walbridge and Meyers wildfires this year , Sonoma County provided access certifications to 375 employers , county communications manager Paul Gullixson told The Intercept .
However , he added , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ farmers , workers , and vineyard owners ultimately were allowed access to their property.
” Although Sonoma County , like many other counties , has a process for permitting agriculture workers to enter evacuation area fields , “ the ultimate decision-making authority concerning when and where property owners are allowed access rests with Cal Fire and other fire officials as well as the Sonoma County Sheriff ’ s Office , CHP ” — California Highway Patrol — “ and other law enforcement officials who determine whether going back inside evacuated areas is safe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one will be allowed to go inside evacuated areas if there is a real and present fire risk — regardless of what certification they may have in their possession.
” Asked why such access would be allowed , he said the reasons are varied : dairy cows whose health will be put at risk if they ’ re not milked , for instance , or irrigation systems and crops that need checking up on .
“ This is true of vineyard owners and managers who sometimes seek permission to access vineyards in evacuated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do so — to harvest grapes , ” Gullixson said .
He pointed to a temporary emergency regulation that requires employers to provide N95 masks and training to workers when the air quality is bad .
California farm and growers associations , however , have fought efforts to enact a stronger , permanent regulation .
The situation would be worrisome in good times , but Latinx residents of the county have been hit harder than other demographic groups by the pandemic .
Half of the confirmed Covid-19 cases in Sonoma County have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only 25 percent of the population .
The tally leaves invisible the impact to the county ’ s Indigenous immigrant population , many of whom do not speak Spanish and have distinct cultural practices and needs , like the Triqui population in Sonoma County , which mostly hails from the Mexican state of Oaxaca , and the Mixtec community , also from southern Mexico .
Members of Peña Lopez ’ s organization , who provide some of the only culturally specific services in the area , fear that the effect of wildfire smoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deepen their vulnerability to Covid-19 .
What happens in California , which has passed some of the only labor rules in the U.S. around extreme heat and wildfire smoke , will likely be mimicked across the country , as state and federal legislators grapple with the impacts of increasingly severe fires , floods , and heat .
But far more than masks rules will be needed to protect workers in wildfire zones .
Over the past year , the environmental movement and Democratic Party politicians have given increasing lip service to the concept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prioritize protecting the nation ’ s most vulnerable people .
The conditions for Sonoma County ’ s grape harvesters reveal the crowded intersection of problems that a meaningful climate justice agenda would have to take on : from immigrant rights to worker protections to altered land-use planning .
In California and across the U.S. , a dearth of public supports designed for undocumented immigrants confronting increasingly common natural disasters will inevitably deepen already desperate economic situations .
With their own labor as the only resource available to countless people , the pool @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs will only expand .
So long as government officials continue to prioritize the needs of business owners also hurt by disasters , workers are likely to find themselves in increasingly dangerous situations .
This summer , the immigrant workers toiling in Sonoma County ’ s smoke-filled vineyards were the epitome of these dangers .
This isn ’ t the first round of wildfires Sonoma workers have endured .
The Tubbs fire , which for a single year was the most destructive fire in California history before being overshadowed by the Camp fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , followed by the Kincade fire in 2019 .
The increasingly severe wildfires and the dry conditions that have helped drive them are consistent with scientists ’ expectations for the effects of climate change .
During those past fires , as now , workers were allowed to enter evacuation zones to conduct “ critical functions , ” including , “ harvesting , feeding and watering livestock , managing fermentations , and irrigating nursery crops , ” according to a December 2019 post by then-Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner Tony Linegar .
Working with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , California Highway Patrol , and the Sonoma County Sheriff ’ s Office , the agricultural commission issued evacuation zone entry permits to 280 groups of people in 2017 and 67 in 2019 , Linegar wrote .
But industry groups also played a key role : The Farm Bureau and Sonoma Winegrowers acted as a “ clearinghouse for all of the access requests , ” the agricultural commissioner added .
“ I was literally in constant contact with them day and night throughout the event.
” Linegar noted that a statewide protocol is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the process must include the California State Sheriff ’ s Association , Agricultural Commissioner representatives , and California Farm Bureau Federation .
He did not mention workers ’ groups , like Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena .
Worker organizations are pushing on their own for a regulation that will at least make clear that outdoor labor should only be authorized in wildfire zones by the authority that ordered the evacuation , typically CalFire and local law enforcement .
If workers are allowed into such areas , employers should create an evacuation plan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers were taken in and left without a form of transportation to get out quickly , ” said Anne Katten , pesticide and work safety project director for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation .
Nearly a year after Linegar ’ s post , the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection , known as CalFire , confirmed that fire officials and local law enforcement across the state still grant permissions on a “ case-by-case basis.
” Sonoma County Winegrowers President Karissa Kruse denied playing a deciding role in access permissions .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ farmers and a variety of governmental agencies , including CalFire , the county ag commissioner , the county sheriff ’ s office , and others , we have no ability to grant access to a disaster area .
That permission can only be provided by the sheriff ’ s office , ” she told The Intercept .
The sheriff ’ s office referred all questions about evacuation area access to the county agriculture department .
The Sonoma County Farm Bureau also did not respond to queries .
“ In Sonoma County , our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Many of the men and women employed by our farms have become like family , working with their respective farming families for decades , ” Kruse told The Intercept .
“ Safety and health have been and remain a top priority during harvest and throughout the year.
” Yet in the midst of yet another devastating fire season , no clear protocol for granting evacuation area access yet exists .
Only in the past week did workers ’ organizations obtain a meeting with the county to discuss worker safety in evacuation zones .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerged does not match federal public health guidelines and has confronted pushback from growers .
In the wake of past fires , California became the only state in the U.S. to create a worker safety standard designed specifically for wildfire smoke , according to the Environmental Protection Agency .
After the Tubbs fire , worker advocates with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and other groups began pushing for worker protections when the air quality is low .
The result was a temporary emergency order passed in the summer of 2019 .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the beginning of each shift .
If the air is bad , they must first attempt to take measures to avoid smoke , like moving to a less smoky location or scheduling work at times of day that are less hazardous .
If they can ’ t escape the bad air , they must offer workers N95 masks and training on how to use them The regulations , however , are insufficient , advocates say .
For one , the protections are triggered too late , leaving many people laboring in unhealthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rule is based on what is known as the Air Quality Index , the EPA ’ s system for measuring the concentration of tiny particulate matter in the air .
Particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or smaller worries health professionals most .
If inhaled , it can irritate the lungs and lead to diseases .
One recent study indicated that Montana communities had flu rates three to five times higher than usual after they were hit by wildfires .
“ It makes you a whole lot more susceptible to all sorts of things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at the University of California , Davis .
“ Covid-19 would be an immediate concern.
” Any AQI reading above 100 means the air is “ unhealthy for sensitive groups , ” while 151 is simply “ unhealthy.
” A reading above 300 is considered “ hazardous.
” Under the California regulation , masks don ’ t have to be offered until the index hits 151 , and they ’ re not required unless it exceeds 500 .
That ’ s why the regulations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Most , if not all , of California ’ s agricultural workforce qualify as “ sensitive , ” according to the EPA ’ s definitions .
A 2019 agency report , “ Wildfire Smoke : A Guide for Public Health Officials , ” defines “ sensitive groups ” as including people of a “ low socioeconomic status , ” a composite measure that includes educational attainment , household income , percentage of the population in poverty , race and ethnicity , and location of residence .
The limited access to health care @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” means that underlying problems may go undiagnosed or untreated , the guide notes .
Combined with a lowered ability to take measures that can reduce smoke exposure , such as closing windows and using an air conditioner to manage high heat , such groups are left “ more likely to be adversely affected and less likely to recover , ” the EPA says .
What ’ s more , outdoor workers in general are considered a sensitive population , and workers with underlying conditions like asthma or diabetes are unlikely to notify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 101 , the air tends to look hazy , and sensitive groups are advised to “ avoid physical exertion ” and “ limit time spent outdoors.
” That ’ s when workers should have access to masks , said Pinkerton .
At 151 , the air begins to resemble a fog .
“ Really , at 150 , no one should be working , ” he said , adding that , at those levels , “ the N95 masks — even the ones properly fitted — will eventually clog up and no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breathing .
An N95 properly fitted probably only is good for a couple hours.
” Meanwhile , Pinkerton said , the regulation ’ s upper limit is meaningless .
An AQI of 501 is a condition so smoky , only firefighters might encounter it : “ If the AQI goes above 200 , absolutely no workers should be in the field.
” Advocates are pushing for masks to be offered at AQI 101 and required at 301 , but a coalition of business associations , including the California Association of Winegrape Growers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wine Institute , and more than two-dozen other groups , has pushed back .
In comments submitted to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health , the coalition argued that requiring businesses to provide masks at an air quality index of 101 would add an unnecessary cost , especially since 101 is more common than 151 .
The business associations acknowledged that an index reading above 300 is rare , but they also warned that requiring masks to be worn at that level could cause a temporarily halt to field work .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ would also require workers to undergo a medical evaluation to assure that they are able to use their mask , and for the mask to be fit-tested to assure that it is worn properly .
The coalition of groups suggested the expense would not be worth the day ’ s work .
The final wildfire smoke rule will be decided by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health in the coming months , but the temporary version is being tested now .
So far , advocates say the mask regulation is being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California Division of Occupational Safety and Health .
Local reporters have interviewed multiple people who say they haven ’ t been offered masks .
With N95 masks in short supply , leaders of Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena say that the workers they are in contact with are more likely to receive a mask from a nonprofit than their supervisor .
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health did not respond to a request for comment .
Even for workers that manage to obtain the recommended personal protective equipment , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working hard with those masks , ” said Peña Lopez , who worked in the fields for years .
Paid by volume , rather than time , grape harvesters spend their shifts running , often picking in the middle of the night , when the grapes ’ sugar levels are stable .
A good day means two tons of grapes per person , said Peña Lopez .
It ’ s exhausting , hot , messy labor .
Many of the community members Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena works with labored in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cloth masks — or no masks at all .
The most obvious solution might seem to be to keep workers out of the fields when there ’ s an unhealthy level of smoke .
But it ’ s not so simple , especially when disasters pile upon disasters .
One reason Sonoma is a key example for understanding what environmental justice requires is that the wine-producing county has had to deal with wildly varied climate and public health disasters — not just fires and the heat waves , but also floods and , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ February , the county endured massive flooding , the effects of an “ atmospheric river , ” a corridor of concentrated water vapor in the sky that can dump massive amounts of rain .
Such “ rivers ” are expected to drop even more rain as temperatures continue to rise .
Peña Lopez lost his home to the flood waters , and without a formal contract describing the living arrangement , he was unable to access any recovery support .
Meanwhile , the heat waves that contribute to wildfires ’ intensity and atmospheric @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on their own , make the harvest perilous for workers .
Perhaps more than any other recent disaster , however , the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated the way consecutive mega-disasters can compound and deepen the vulnerability of the most economically insecure .
As was true in much of the rest of the U.S. , for the Indigenous immigrant communities of Sonoma , anxiety over losing income was as severe as concerns about health effects .
The difference in Sonoma County was that a large proportion of the workforce lacks access to any meaningful income @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obtain unemployment or federal disaster supports like stimulus checks .
Eager to look friendly to desperate immigrants , California ’ s Democratic Gov .
Gavin Newsom offered $ 500 assistance cards .
But advocates say that for many , the paltry sum wasn ’ t worth the risk to their safety .
“ Some people were afraid that if they received assistance from the governor , the federal government would know and might be able to obtain information about where to find them , ” Peña Lopez explained .
He said he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. who were too terrified to even use special welfare benefit cards provided to account for lost school lunches .
As the pandemic raged , many of those who lost work in the service sector or other industries turned to the fields , where agricultural labor had been declared essential .
More than ever , the harvest became a solitary sustaining force in Sonoma County .
This year , its busiest and most lucrative period dovetailed perfectly with the early and aggressive wildfire season .
After the Tubbs fire , the organizations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Labor Center , and the North Bay Organizing Project launched the UndocuFund to provide basic necessities to community members .
It was relaunched in response to the Kincade fire and in 2020 , filled in the gaps left by a dearth of public services offered during the pandemic .
At the peak of the crisis , the fund had a waitlist of 4,500 people looking for benefits .
The question of what will be needed to support wildfire survivors remains unanswered .
( Grape-growing industry figures also operate their own fund to benefit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so many crises with so little support , Indigenous people working the fields are developing their own infrastructures of support .
When the wildfires came , members of Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena were ready with tents and an open area where people could camp , having learned time and again that their community is fearful of shelters operated federal agencies .
They ’ ve created a network of diverse language speakers for emergencies , and they ’ ve launched their own separate fund to support services for Indigenous immigrants — not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ specific resources for healing , like weaving therapy , traditional herb cleanses , music lessons , and family-friendly language classes .
For Peña Lopez , climate justice means building Indigenous people ’ s power so that they can support themselves .
“ We ’ ve given you fruit and vegetables at a good price , ” said Peña Lopez , explaining the low-wage , taxed labor Indigenous farmworkers carried out , despite the risks of the pandemic and the wildfires .
“ In the hour when we need some resource to survive this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give us support .
We ’ ve simply been excluded for a long time .
Because of that , we as an Indigenous community are fighting for our own people .
”

As wildfire smoke billowed into the wine-producing region of Sonoma County, California, workers continued harvesting grapes, day and night. Even in evacuation zones, where the safety threat from flames was severe enough for officials to ask residents to leave the area, the county agriculture commissioner invited workers to continue laboring in the fields, doling out evacuation-area access passes to dozens of agricultural producers. With undocumented immigrants — many of them workers from Latin American Indigenous communities — already economically drained after surviving months of the pandemic with virtually no government support, workers were in no position to decline an offer for work.
For the workers, their hands were forced by a combination of circumstances as toxic as the ash that falls over the region’s famous vineyards: the economic drive to keep the wine industry going; the lack of resources for non-Spanish-speaking workers; a near-total dearth of economic support; the economic stresses of the coronavirus pandemic; and a climate of fear around immigration enforcement that prevents the workers from asking for help.
What’s needed more than anything, advocates say, is an economic safety net in times of disaster so that people don’t have to accept perilous work and changes to immigration laws, so they don’t have to fear offers of help.
“We work when there are rains, we work when there is fire, we work in whatever conditions. There is no resource we can count on, so there’s nothing left but to work.”
“We work when there are rains, we work when there is fire, we work in whatever conditions. It isn’t the most viable, but it is a necessity to provide for our families here or the parts of our families that stayed in our place of origin,” said Gervacio Peña Lopez, a board member of the local Indigenous workers’ group Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena, who is Mixtec and worked in the fields for years. “There is no resource we can count on, so there’s nothing left but to work.”
Officials that regulate evacuation order exemptions have close relationships to agricultural associations that serve local business owners’ interests. Over four years of massive wildfires, the wine region’s agricultural commissioners worked closely with the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and Sonoma County Winegrowers to repeatedly grant permission to growers to harvest in wildfire-evacuation zones. Smoke from wildfires can damage the delicate flavor of the region’s world-famous wines. The threat of deep financial losses creates a pressing incentive to harvest as quickly as possible, even when fire and smoke risk damage to lungs — and especially during a year when yields are expected to be lower than usual and the pandemic cut down restaurant sales.
During the Walbridge and Meyers wildfires this year, Sonoma County provided access certifications to 375 employers, county communications manager Paul Gullixson told The Intercept. However, he added, “Not all of those property owners, farmers, workers, and vineyard owners ultimately were allowed access to their property.”
Although Sonoma County, like many other counties, has a process for permitting agriculture workers to enter evacuation area fields, “the ultimate decision-making authority concerning when and where property owners are allowed access rests with Cal Fire and other fire officials as well as the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, CHP” — California Highway Patrol — “and other law enforcement officials who determine whether going back inside evacuated areas is safe,” Gullixson said. “No one will be allowed to go inside evacuated areas if there is a real and present fire risk — regardless of what certification they may have in their possession.”
Asked why such access would be allowed, he said the reasons are varied: dairy cows whose health will be put at risk if they’re not milked, for instance, or irrigation systems and crops that need checking up on. “This is true of vineyard owners and managers who sometimes seek permission to access vineyards in evacuated areas — when it’s safe to do so — to harvest grapes,” Gullixson said.
He pointed to a temporary emergency regulation that requires employers to provide N95 masks and training to workers when the air quality is bad. California farm and growers associations, however, have fought efforts to enact a stronger, permanent regulation.
The situation would be worrisome in good times, but Latinx residents of the county have been hit harder than other demographic groups by the pandemic. Half of the confirmed Covid-19 cases in Sonoma County have been Latinx patients, although they represent only 25 percent of the population. The tally leaves invisible the impact to the county’s Indigenous immigrant population, many of whom do not speak Spanish and have distinct cultural practices and needs, like the Triqui population in Sonoma County, which mostly hails from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and the Mixtec community, also from southern Mexico.
Members of Peña Lopez’s organization, who provide some of the only culturally specific services in the area, fear that the effect of wildfire smoke on their community members’ lungs will deepen their vulnerability to Covid-19.
What happens in California, which has passed some of the only labor rules in the U.S. around extreme heat and wildfire smoke, will likely be mimicked across the country, as state and federal legislators grapple with the impacts of increasingly severe fires, floods, and heat. But far more than masks rules will be needed to protect workers in wildfire zones.
Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants
Over the past year, the environmental movement and Democratic Party politicians have given increasing lip service to the concept of “environmental justice,” promising to prioritize protecting the nation’s most vulnerable people. The conditions for Sonoma County’s grape harvesters reveal the crowded intersection of problems that a meaningful climate justice agenda would have to take on: from immigrant rights to worker protections to altered land-use planning.
In California and across the U.S., a dearth of public supports designed for undocumented immigrants confronting increasingly common natural disasters will inevitably deepen already desperate economic situations. With their own labor as the only resource available to countless people, the pool of workers willing to take on unsafe jobs will only expand. So long as government officials continue to prioritize the needs of business owners also hurt by disasters, workers are likely to find themselves in increasingly dangerous situations.
This summer, the immigrant workers toiling in Sonoma County’s smoke-filled vineyards were the epitome of these dangers.
Smoke hangs over the Fieldstone Winery vineyard along Highway 128 after the Kincade Fire in Healdsburg, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2019. Photo: Jane Tyska/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images
A Public-Private Collaboration
This isn’t the first round of wildfires Sonoma workers have endured. The Tubbs fire, which for a single year was the most destructive fire in California history before being overshadowed by the Camp fire, tore through the county in 2017, followed by the Kincade fire in 2019. The increasingly severe wildfires and the dry conditions that have helped drive them are consistent with scientists’ expectations for the effects of climate change.
During those past fires, as now, workers were allowed to enter evacuation zones to conduct “critical functions,” including, “harvesting, feeding and watering livestock, managing fermentations, and irrigating nursery crops,” according to a December 2019 post by then-Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner Tony Linegar.
Working with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, California Highway Patrol, and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, the agricultural commission issued evacuation zone entry permits to 280 groups of people in 2017 and 67 in 2019, Linegar wrote. But industry groups also played a key role: The Farm Bureau and Sonoma Winegrowers acted as a “clearinghouse for all of the access requests,” the agricultural commissioner added. “I was literally in constant contact with them day and night throughout the event.”
Linegar noted that a statewide protocol is needed for future fires and argued that the process must include the California State Sheriff’s Association, Agricultural Commissioner representatives, and California Farm Bureau Federation. He did not mention workers’ groups, like Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena.
Worker organizations are pushing on their own for a regulation that will at least make clear that outdoor labor should only be authorized in wildfire zones by the authority that ordered the evacuation, typically CalFire and local law enforcement. If workers are allowed into such areas, employers should create an evacuation plan. “We were very concerned whether workers were taken in and left without a form of transportation to get out quickly,” said Anne Katten, pesticide and work safety project director for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.
“We were very concerned whether workers were taken in and left without a form of transportation to get out quickly.”
Nearly a year after Linegar’s post, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as CalFire, confirmed that fire officials and local law enforcement across the state still grant permissions on a “case-by-case basis.”
Sonoma County Winegrowers President Karissa Kruse denied playing a deciding role in access permissions. “While we are a liaison between local farmers and a variety of governmental agencies, including CalFire, the county ag commissioner, the county sheriff’s office, and others, we have no ability to grant access to a disaster area. That permission can only be provided by the sheriff’s office,” she told The Intercept. The sheriff’s office referred all questions about evacuation area access to the county agriculture department. The Sonoma County Farm Bureau also did not respond to queries.
“In Sonoma County, our local farmers care about their employees. Many of the men and women employed by our farms have become like family, working with their respective farming families for decades,” Kruse told The Intercept. “Safety and health have been and remain a top priority during harvest and throughout the year.”
Yet in the midst of yet another devastating fire season, no clear protocol for granting evacuation area access yet exists. Only in the past week did workers’ organizations obtain a meeting with the county to discuss worker safety in evacuation zones. And advocates say another regulation that has emerged does not match federal public health guidelines and has confronted pushback from growers.
Insufficient Regulations for Work in Smoke
In the wake of past fires, California became the only state in the U.S. to create a worker safety standard designed specifically for wildfire smoke, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. After the Tubbs fire, worker advocates with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and other groups began pushing for worker protections when the air quality is low. The result was a temporary emergency order passed in the summer of 2019. It requires employers to determine the air quality at the beginning of each shift. If the air is bad, they must first attempt to take measures to avoid smoke, like moving to a less smoky location or scheduling work at times of day that are less hazardous. If they can’t escape the bad air, they must offer workers N95 masks and training on how to use them
The regulations, however, are insufficient, advocates say. For one, the protections are triggered too late, leaving many people laboring in unhealthy air without any required precautions.
The rule is based on what is known as the Air Quality Index, the EPA’s system for measuring the concentration of tiny particulate matter in the air. Particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or smaller worries health professionals most. If inhaled, it can irritate the lungs and lead to diseases. One recent study indicated that Montana communities had flu rates three to five times higher than usual after they were hit by wildfires. “It makes you a whole lot more susceptible to all sorts of things,” said Kent Pinkerton, director of the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at the University of California, Davis. “Covid-19 would be an immediate concern.”
Any AQI reading above 100 means the air is “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” while 151 is simply “unhealthy.” A reading above 300 is considered “hazardous.” Under the California regulation, masks don’t have to be offered until the index hits 151, and they’re not required unless it exceeds 500.
That’s why the regulations fall short of needs, advocates say. Most, if not all, of California’s agricultural workforce qualify as “sensitive,” according to the EPA’s definitions. A 2019 agency report, “Wildfire Smoke: A Guide for Public Health Officials,” defines “sensitive groups” as including people of a “low socioeconomic status,” a composite measure that includes educational attainment, household income, percentage of the population in poverty, race and ethnicity, and location of residence. The limited access to health care that frequently accompanies “low socioeconomic status” means that underlying problems may go undiagnosed or untreated, the guide notes. Combined with a lowered ability to take measures that can reduce smoke exposure, such as closing windows and using an air conditioner to manage high heat, such groups are left “more likely to be adversely affected and less likely to recover,” the EPA says. What’s more, outdoor workers in general are considered a sensitive population, and workers with underlying conditions like asthma or diabetes are unlikely to notify their employers.
At an AQI reading of 101, the air tends to look hazy, and sensitive groups are advised to “avoid physical exertion” and “limit time spent outdoors.” That’s when workers should have access to masks, said Pinkerton. At 151, the air begins to resemble a fog. “Really, at 150, no one should be working,” he said, adding that, at those levels, “the N95 masks — even the ones properly fitted — will eventually clog up and no longer be effective and actually cause labored breathing. An N95 properly fitted probably only is good for a couple hours.”
Meanwhile, Pinkerton said, the regulation’s upper limit is meaningless. An AQI of 501 is a condition so smoky, only firefighters might encounter it: “If the AQI goes above 200, absolutely no workers should be in the field.”
Advocates are pushing for masks to be offered at AQI 101 and required at 301, but a coalition of business associations, including the California Association of Winegrape Growers, the California Farm Bureau Federation, the Wine Institute, and more than two-dozen other groups, has pushed back. In comments submitted to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, the coalition argued that requiring businesses to provide masks at an air quality index of 101 would add an unnecessary cost, especially since 101 is more common than 151.
“If the AQI goes above 200, absolutely no workers should be in the field.”
The business associations acknowledged that an index reading above 300 is rare, but they also warned that requiring masks to be worn at that level could cause a temporarily halt to field work. At a 301 reading, the regulation would also require workers to undergo a medical evaluation to assure that they are able to use their mask, and for the mask to be fit-tested to assure that it is worn properly. The coalition of groups suggested the expense would not be worth the day’s work.
The final wildfire smoke rule will be decided by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health in the coming months, but the temporary version is being tested now.
So far, advocates say the mask regulation is being implemented inconsistently and enforced sparsely by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. Local reporters have interviewed multiple people who say they haven’t been offered masks. With N95 masks in short supply, leaders of Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena say that the workers they are in contact with are more likely to receive a mask from a nonprofit than their supervisor. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health did not respond to a request for comment.
Even for workers that manage to obtain the recommended personal protective equipment, “You can’t last an hour working hard with those masks,” said Peña Lopez, who worked in the fields for years. Paid by volume, rather than time, grape harvesters spend their shifts running, often picking in the middle of the night, when the grapes’ sugar levels are stable. A good day means two tons of grapes per person, said Peña Lopez. It’s exhausting, hot, messy labor. Many of the community members Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena works with labored in the smoky fields this summer with only useless cloth masks — or no masks at all.
Agricultural workers from Bud Farms harvest celery for both American and export consumption on March 26, 2020, in Oxnard, Calif. Photo: Brent Stirton/Getty Images
Disaster Upon Disaster
The most obvious solution might seem to be to keep workers out of the fields when there’s an unhealthy level of smoke. But it’s not so simple, especially when disasters pile upon disasters.
One reason Sonoma is a key example for understanding what environmental justice requires is that the wine-producing county has had to deal with wildly varied climate and public health disasters — not just fires and the heat waves, but also floods and, this year, a pandemic.
Last February, the county endured massive flooding, the effects of an “atmospheric river,” a corridor of concentrated water vapor in the sky that can dump massive amounts of rain. Such “rivers” are expected to drop even more rain as temperatures continue to rise. Peña Lopez lost his home to the flood waters, and without a formal contract describing the living arrangement, he was unable to access any recovery support. Meanwhile, the heat waves that contribute to wildfires’ intensity and atmospheric rivers’ water vapor content can, on their own, make the harvest perilous for workers.
Perhaps more than any other recent disaster, however, the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated the way consecutive mega-disasters can compound and deepen the vulnerability of the most economically insecure. As was true in much of the rest of the U.S., for the Indigenous immigrant communities of Sonoma, anxiety over losing income was as severe as concerns about health effects. The difference in Sonoma County was that a large proportion of the workforce lacks access to any meaningful income replacement. Undocumented workers cannot typically obtain unemployment or federal disaster supports like stimulus checks.
“We’ve simply been excluded for a long time. Because of that, we as an Indigenous community are fighting for our own people.”
Eager to look friendly to desperate immigrants, California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom offered $500 assistance cards. But advocates say that for many, the paltry sum wasn’t worth the risk to their safety. “Some people were afraid that if they received assistance from the governor, the federal government would know and might be able to obtain information about where to find them,” Peña Lopez explained. He said he has heard of mothers of children born in the U.S. who were too terrified to even use special welfare benefit cards provided to account for lost school lunches.
As the pandemic raged, many of those who lost work in the service sector or other industries turned to the fields, where agricultural labor had been declared essential. More than ever, the harvest became a solitary sustaining force in Sonoma County. This year, its busiest and most lucrative period dovetailed perfectly with the early and aggressive wildfire season.
After the Tubbs fire, the organizations Jobs With Justice, the Graton Day Labor Center, and the North Bay Organizing Project launched the UndocuFund to provide basic necessities to community members. It was relaunched in response to the Kincade fire and in 2020, filled in the gaps left by a dearth of public services offered during the pandemic. At the peak of the crisis, the fund had a waitlist of 4,500 people looking for benefits. The question of what will be needed to support wildfire survivors remains unanswered. (Grape-growing industry figures also operate their own fund to benefit employees.)
In the wake of so many crises with so little support, Indigenous people working the fields are developing their own infrastructures of support. When the wildfires came, members of Movimiento Cultural de la Unión Indígena were ready with tents and an open area where people could camp, having learned time and again that their community is fearful of shelters operated federal agencies. They’ve created a network of diverse language speakers for emergencies, and they’ve launched their own separate fund to support services for Indigenous immigrants — not only for translators, but also culturally specific resources for healing, like weaving therapy, traditional herb cleanses, music lessons, and family-friendly language classes.
For Peña Lopez, climate justice means building Indigenous people’s power so that they can support themselves.
“We’ve given you fruit and vegetables at a good price,” said Peña Lopez, explaining the low-wage, taxed labor Indigenous farmworkers carried out, despite the risks of the pandemic and the wildfires. “In the hour when we need some resource to survive this crisis situation, they don’t give us support. We’ve simply been excluded for a long time. Because of that, we as an Indigenous community are fighting for our own people.”


theintercept--2020-09-07--Covid-19 Workers' Comp Claims Are Being Held Up or Denied

started to feel really sick in the middle of her 16-hour shift in April as a corrections officer in Hartford , Connecticut .
A week before , she had called her doctor because she was having trouble tasting and smelling , but he told her not to worry .
Then she started to feel lightheaded and dizzy and had a hard time breathing .
Her doctor sent her to get a nasal swab test for Covid-19 the same day , which came back positive .
She spent the next three weeks in bed with vertigo , shortness of breath , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vomiting .
She struggled to keep her eyes open .
“ It was like nothing I ’ ve ever experienced in my life , ” she said .
“ It was all day every day , all day long.
” Ligi is certain she got Covid-19 from her work .
“ In our job , to be honest with you , social distancing is nearly impossible , ” she said .
She works on a housing floor with up to 100 inmates , plus her fellow officers .
“ That six-foot rule is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s impossible to open windows for better ventilation .
The facility couldn ’ t secure enough cleaning supplies at first .
On top of that , there was a shortage of masks , so instead of adequately protective N95 masks , she was given one surgical mask to last until whenever the next shipment arrived .
Covid-19 cases had already started to crop up in the facility before she got sick .
Plus , she doesn ’ t know where else she could have gotten it ; nearly everything was shut down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced to go to work because we had to , ” she said .
“ We had to go in harm ’ s way.
” In return for shouldering that risk , she assumed that she would be repaid .
She filed a claim with her state workers ’ compensation system , expecting that it would cover some of her pay for the time she was out from work and the medical care she received .
But she still hasn ’ t gotten any benefits .
“ I didn ’ t even get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” she said .
“ I got zero contact.
” Ligi is one of countless front-line workers across the country who contracted Covid-19 at work but are having their workers ’ comp claims held up or outright denied .
Employers and insurance companies are instead insisting that employees , even those directly exposed to the virus , can ’ t prove that they got sick at work and claiming that they were infected outside the workplace .
In Massachusetts , for example , out of 5,030 reports of first injury — the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — 734 have been denied and 69 are in dispute , according to state government data shared with The Intercept by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health .
In California , workers have made over 30,000 workers ’ comp claims , nearly a quarter of which have already been denied .
Out of 3,807 claims in Florida , 1,695 had been denied as of the end of May .
Many of the denials have been in front-line occupations .
Over 370 in Massachusetts were in health care , as were 521 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to protective services , including first responders , in Florida .
pandemic , workers ’ comp was in many ways a failed system , ” noted Debbie Berkowitz , worker health and safety program director at the National Employment Law Project .
But Covid-19 “ exposes the weakness of workers ’ safety rights.
” Workers ’ compensation was set up over a century ago as a grand bargain between employers and employees .
Employees gave up their right to sue their employers over injuries and illnesses sustained on the job , even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ return , workers were supposed to get speedy financial relief .
Workers are meant to be able to file a claim and get timely replacement pay and medical coverage .
If they end up permanently disabled , there are ongoing benefits .
If they die , their families are due a survivors ’ benefit .
But states have steadily reneged on that deal , pushed along by business interests and the insurance companies that offer workers ’ comp coverage .
Between 2003 and 2014 , 33 states reduced benefits or made it more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increased the criteria for coverage such that some claims are no longer covered ; others exclude some illnesses and conditions altogether .
In 2007 , workers ’ comp was estimated to cover less than a third of workers ’ lost earnings and medical costs .
Courts have ruled that benefits are so low and difficult to obtain in Alabama and Florida as to be unconstitutional .
Even states that used to be leaders have backtracked : New York was the first state to adopt workers ’ comp , and yet has steadily changed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be less and less generous .
Many employers routinely deny workers ’ comp claims in an attempt to duck liability , but most workers don ’ t know they can push back on the denials .
“ Workers , a lot of the time , still have to basically pursue a legal challenge in order to get decent benefits , ” noted James Parrott , senior director of economic and fiscal policies at the Center for New York City Affairs .
The structure is even less sturdy when it comes to illnesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] better if the injury actually happened right there on the job and everybody saw it , ” Berkowitz noted .
But for diseases that are less visible , that take longer to become apparent , it ’ s harder to prove they happened at work .
Berkowitz pointed out that Congress had to pass specific legislation to give miners relief from black lung , even though “ you don ’ t really get black lung from anything else.
” And while workers ’ comp typically covers some occupational illnesses like tuberculosis contracted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cover others like the flu .
“ There was no sense of certainty that [ Covid ] would be covered to begin with , ” noted Sal Luciano , president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO .
19 states have taken some kind of action to create a presumption in their workers ’ comp systems that workers contracted Covid-19 through their employment , according to a tally compiled by the Connecticut AFL-CIO .
A presumption should pave a much smoother path to get coronavirus-related claims approved .
But the actions vary .
Michigan ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first response employees , ” who are defined as health care workers and police officers .
Kentucky ’ s governor , on the other hand , signed an executive order in early April that covers a huge swath of the workforce , including child care providers , grocery store employees , social service providers , and others .
Ligi was lucky to get two weeks of paid leave through the state .
But she had to use a week of her own paid leave after that as she recovered .
She ended up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ready because she didn ’ t want to use up any more of her benefits ; she needed to preserve her time off in case one of her family members got sick and she had to care for them .
Plus , hers was also the only source of income ; her husband owns a restaurant , but it closed down for three months .
But it took her state a long time to act to ensure that workers like her could get back pay and medical coverage through the workers ’ comp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for months .
Gov .
Ned Lamont finally signed an executive order on July 24 creating a presumption for Covid-19 workers ’ comp claims .
The order applies to all essential workers ; it also designates Covid-19 as an occupational illness , which should bolster all workers ’ cases .
After Lamont signed the executive order , “ I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders , ” Ligi said .
It doesn ’ t necessarily secure her benefits ; her case is still being reviewed .
Lamont @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expiration date : It only covers Covid-19 contracted at work up until May 20 .
Yet Luciano pointed out that there are essential workers still going to their jobs without proper protection .
A July survey of nurses across the country found only 24 percent felt they were working in a safe environment with the proper protective equipment .
Bus drivers , Luciano said , are given one mask per week .
His union is hoping that the legislature will extend the presumption in its upcoming special session .
In the states that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ however , workers enter a system designed to work against them , and insurance companies are making every effort to wiggle out of responsibility for workers ’ comp claims .
Out of 60 coronavirus-related cases workers ’ compensation lawyer Mary Ellen O ’ Connor has taken on in New York , a state that hasn ’ t enacted a presumption , just two have been accepted ; the rest are being challenged .
In one involving a first responder , the insurance company looked up what school the worker ’ s children attended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ district had one case of Covid-19 , the worker can ’ t prove they got it at work — even though the child didn ’ t attend that school , and the worker got Covid-19 three weeks after schools shut down .
“ They are seeking to point blame anywhere other than the work environment , ” O ’ Connor said .
“ They probably will spend more money paying defense attorneys to defend files than the cost [ of paying benefits ] itself.
” But an even larger problem , O ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of her cases — somewhere between 65 and 70 percent — haven ’ t gotten a response from the insurance company at all , leaving workers in a state of purgatory in which they can ’ t get repaid for the time off they took or the medical care they needed .
A number of O ’ Connor ’ s clients have gone back to work and can ’ t take time off for lingering Covid-19 treatment or to care for their children because they burned through all of their benefits already .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ languishing without pay or medical care .
A presumption , then , wouldn ’ t just make these cases easier to win .
It would speed them up because insurance companies wouldn ’ t have the chance to challenge them .
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO is pushing the state legislature to pass the many bills it ’ s considering to create a Covid-19 presumption for the workers ’ comp system — just as other presumptions exist for other diseases .
“ It ’ s not a radical concept , ” Chrissy Lynch , chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She ’ s hopeful something will pass .
“ They ’ re talking about occupational presumption now in a way I don ’ t think it has ever been talked about before , ” she said .
Advocates in New York aren ’ t just pushing for a Covid-19 presumption to deal with the current crisis , but for the legislature to make more sweeping reforms to the system so it responds better in normal times : providing a hearing for every case , making it easier to get permanent disability benefits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s fundamental changes needed , ” said William Crossett , co-chair of the New York Workers ’ Compensation Alliance .
Even if the legislature enacts a presumption , “ We ’ re still going to have to litigate these cases.
” And that process currently works against the workers ’ favor , he said .
The federal government could , conceivably , do something to fix this system .
In the 1970s , Congress created a commission to study workers ’ comp , unanimously concluding that state laws were “ inadequate and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a number of changes .
Then in 2016 , the Department of Labor issued a report on the system ’ s failings and suggested a federal commission to create standards for states ’ programs .
That work , however , came to a halt when Donald Trump took office .
the lasting effects of coronavirus make it a long-term issue .
Caitlin Fournier got sick with Covid-19 in March after exposure to infected co-workers at the psychiatric hospital where she works in Holyoke , Massachusetts .
She ’ s confident she contracted Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terrified of being the person that kills my unit of patients , ” she said , since she works primarily with the elderly .
She got her groceries delivered , kept her daughter home from school , and created a “ sanitation station ” at the entrance to her house .
“ I was being so cautious in my life that I don ’ t know how I would have gotten it anywhere else.
” She was out for two weeks , barely able to get off her couch , and then was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of April .
Two hours into her first shift , she was hyperventilating and her oxygen levels were dangerously low .
She hasn ’ t worked since .
“ I can ’ t walk more than 20 feet without my oxygen level dropping below 90 , ” she said .
It ’ s so bad that she recently had to cancel her plans to accompany her daughter to her socially distant dance recital because she didn ’ t think she could handle all the walking and standing .
It was the first time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stage .
Fournier counts herself lucky .
First , she survived Covid-19 .
And second , her workers ’ comp case was approved for the weeks she was out .
But she was supposed to go back to work on light duty at the end of June , then was instead told if she couldn ’ t go back to her regular duties , she couldn ’ t come back at all .
Her employment terminated , Fournier is now fighting to get ongoing benefits .
She ’ s receiving unemployment , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ runs out if she can ’ t find a job or , worse , can ’ t physically return to work .
“ It almost seems like I have to keep proving that I am not faking and I actually can ’ t breathe , ” she said .
Covid-19 is proving for many to have ongoing , debilitating consequences .
About 20 percent of O ’ Connor ’ s clients are still experiencing long-term problems .
A first responder has blood clots in his stomach and can ’ t return to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has breathing problems that are keeping him from working .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently found that about a third of people who contracted Covid-19 had not fully recovered two to three weeks later .
The workers ’ comp system will continue to be called upon to replace wages and cover medical care if people have ongoing complications .
“ A lot of people are going to find that they ’ re going to have problems down the road that they didn ’ t anticipate , ” Crossett said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ working on these cases for a long time , just like we ’ re working on 9/11 cases .
”

Virginia Ligi started to feel really sick in the middle of her 16-hour shift in April as a corrections officer in Cheshire, Connecticut. A week before, she had called her doctor because she was having trouble tasting and smelling, but he told her not to worry. Then she started to feel lightheaded and dizzy and had a hard time breathing. Her doctor sent her to get a nasal swab test for Covid-19 the same day, which came back positive. She spent the next three weeks in bed with vertigo, shortness of breath, muscle aches, migraine headaches, and vomiting. She struggled to keep her eyes open. “It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she said. “It was all day every day, all day long.”
Ligi is certain she got Covid-19 from her work. “In our job, to be honest with you, social distancing is nearly impossible,” she said. She works on a housing floor with up to 100 inmates, plus her fellow officers. “That six-foot rule is really not applicable in prison.” It’s impossible to open windows for better ventilation. The facility couldn’t secure enough cleaning supplies at first. On top of that, there was a shortage of masks, so instead of adequately protective N95 masks, she was given one surgical mask to last until whenever the next shipment arrived. Covid-19 cases had already started to crop up in the facility before she got sick. Plus, she doesn’t know where else she could have gotten it; nearly everything was shut down at that point.
“We were forced to go to work because we had to,” she said. “We had to go in harm’s way.”
In return for shouldering that risk, she assumed that she would be repaid. She filed a claim with her state workers’ compensation system, expecting that it would cover some of her pay for the time she was out from work and the medical care she received.
But she still hasn’t gotten any benefits. “I didn’t even get so much as a denial letter,” she said. “I got zero contact.”
Ligi is one of countless front-line workers across the country who contracted Covid-19 at work but are having their workers’ comp claims held up or outright denied. Employers and insurance companies are instead insisting that employees, even those directly exposed to the virus, can’t prove that they got sick at work and claiming that they were infected outside the workplace.
In Massachusetts, for example, out of 5,030 reports of first injury — the first step in a workers’ comp claim — 734 have been denied and 69 are in dispute, according to state government data shared with The Intercept by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health. In California, workers have made over 30,000 workers’ comp claims, nearly a quarter of which have already been denied. Out of 3,807 claims in Florida, 1,695 had been denied as of the end of May. Many of the denials have been in front-line occupations. Over 370 in Massachusetts were in health care, as were 521 in Florida. Another 780 were denied to protective services, including first responders, in Florida.
“Before the pandemic, workers’ comp was in many ways a failed system,” noted Debbie Berkowitz, worker health and safety program director at the National Employment Law Project. But Covid-19 “exposes the weakness of workers’ safety rights.”
Workers’ compensation was set up over a century ago as a grand bargain between employers and employees. Employees gave up their right to sue their employers over injuries and illnesses sustained on the job, even if they were caused by negligence. In return, workers were supposed to get speedy financial relief. Workers are meant to be able to file a claim and get timely replacement pay and medical coverage. If they end up permanently disabled, there are ongoing benefits. If they die, their families are due a survivors’ benefit.
But states have steadily reneged on that deal, pushed along by business interests and the insurance companies that offer workers’ comp coverage. Between 2003 and 2014, 33 states reduced benefits or made it more difficult to qualify. Some states have increased the criteria for coverage such that some claims are no longer covered; others exclude some illnesses and conditions altogether. In 2007, workers’ comp was estimated to cover less than a third of workers’ lost earnings and medical costs. Courts have ruled that benefits are so low and difficult to obtain in Alabama and Florida as to be unconstitutional. Even states that used to be leaders have backtracked: New York was the first state to adopt workers’ comp, and yet has steadily changed its system over the last 20 years to be less and less generous.
Many employers routinely deny workers’ comp claims in an attempt to duck liability, but most workers don’t know they can push back on the denials. “Workers, a lot of the time, still have to basically pursue a legal challenge in order to get decent benefits,” noted James Parrott, senior director of economic and fiscal policies at the Center for New York City Affairs.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Few workers even bother filing claims these days; in one study from 2009, just 8 percent of those with a serious job-related injury did so. Once they do, employers and insurers are only covering around 20 percent of the cost of their lost wages and medical bills or, for a worker who dies, the lost income for their family. “A work-related injury can really push a worker right out of the middle class,” Berkowitz said.
“It’s an abomination,” Parrott said. It’s an example of “how corporate power over the years has steadily accumulated, and corporations have changed systems to their liking.”
The structure is even less sturdy when it comes to illnesses. “Workers’ comp [is] better if the injury actually happened right there on the job and everybody saw it,” Berkowitz noted. But for diseases that are less visible, that take longer to become apparent, it’s harder to prove they happened at work. Berkowitz pointed out that Congress had to pass specific legislation to give miners relief from black lung, even though “you don’t really get black lung from anything else.”
And while workers’ comp typically covers some occupational illnesses like tuberculosis contracted in hospitals, it doesn’t cover others like the flu. “There was no sense of certainty that [Covid] would be covered to begin with,” noted Sal Luciano, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO.
Photo: John Minchillo/AP
At least 19 states have taken some kind of action to create a presumption in their workers’ comp systems that workers contracted Covid-19 through their employment, according to a tally compiled by the Connecticut AFL-CIO. A presumption should pave a much smoother path to get coronavirus-related claims approved. But the actions vary. Michigan’s governor extended a presumption only to “first response employees,” who are defined as health care workers and police officers. Kentucky’s governor, on the other hand, signed an executive order in early April that covers a huge swath of the workforce, including child care providers, grocery store employees, social service providers, and others.
Ligi was lucky to get two weeks of paid leave through the state. But she had to use a week of her own paid leave after that as she recovered. She ended up returning to work before she was actually ready because she didn’t want to use up any more of her benefits; she needed to preserve her time off in case one of her family members got sick and she had to care for them. Plus, hers was also the only source of income; her husband owns a restaurant, but it closed down for three months.
But it took her state a long time to act to ensure that workers like her could get back pay and medical coverage through the workers’ comp system, leaving her in the lurch for months. Gov. Ned Lamont finally signed an executive order on July 24 creating a presumption for Covid-19 workers’ comp claims. The order applies to all essential workers; it also designates Covid-19 as an occupational illness, which should bolster all workers’ cases.
After Lamont signed the executive order, “I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders,” Ligi said. It doesn’t necessarily secure her benefits; her case is still being reviewed.
Lamont’s executive order also has an expiration date: It only covers Covid-19 contracted at work up until May 20. Yet Luciano pointed out that there are essential workers still going to their jobs without proper protection. A July survey of nurses across the country found only 24 percent felt they were working in a safe environment with the proper protective equipment. Bus drivers, Luciano said, are given one mask per week. His union is hoping that the legislature will extend the presumption in its upcoming special session.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In the states that haven’t taken any action, however, workers enter a system designed to work against them, and insurance companies are making every effort to wiggle out of responsibility for workers’ comp claims.
Out of 60 coronavirus-related cases workers’ compensation lawyer Mary Ellen O’Connor has taken on in New York, a state that hasn’t enacted a presumption, just two have been accepted; the rest are being challenged. In one involving a first responder, the insurance company looked up what school the worker’s children attended and tried to claim that because the district had one case of Covid-19, the worker can’t prove they got it at work — even though the child didn’t attend that school, and the worker got Covid-19 three weeks after schools shut down.
“They are seeking to point blame anywhere other than the work environment,” O’Connor said. “They probably will spend more money paying defense attorneys to defend files than the cost [of paying benefits] itself.”
But an even larger problem, O’Connor said, is that the majority of her cases — somewhere between 65 and 70 percent — haven’t gotten a response from the insurance company at all, leaving workers in a state of purgatory in which they can’t get repaid for the time off they took or the medical care they needed. A number of O’Connor’s clients have gone back to work and can’t take time off for lingering Covid-19 treatment or to care for their children because they burned through all of their benefits already. Others aren’t working and are languishing without pay or medical care. A presumption, then, wouldn’t just make these cases easier to win. It would speed them up because insurance companies wouldn’t have the chance to challenge them.
Do you have a coronavirus story you want to share? Email us at coronavirus@theintercept.com or use one of these secure methods to contact a reporter.
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO is pushing the state legislature to pass the many bills it’s considering to create a Covid-19 presumption for the workers’ comp system — just as other presumptions exist for other diseases. “It’s not a radical concept,” Chrissy Lynch, chief of staff at the union, said. She’s hopeful something will pass. “They’re talking about occupational presumption now in a way I don’t think it has ever been talked about before,” she said.
Advocates in New York aren’t just pushing for a Covid-19 presumption to deal with the current crisis, but for the legislature to make more sweeping reforms to the system so it responds better in normal times: providing a hearing for every case, making it easier to get permanent disability benefits, and other reforms.
“There’s fundamental changes needed,” said William Crossett, co-chair of the New York Workers’ Compensation Alliance. Even if the legislature enacts a presumption, “We’re still going to have to litigate these cases.” And that process currently works against the workers’ favor, he said.
The federal government could, conceivably, do something to fix this system. In the 1970s, Congress created a commission to study workers’ comp, unanimously concluding that state laws were “inadequate and inequitable” and advising Congress to make a number of changes. Then in 2016, the Department of Labor issued a report on the system’s failings and suggested a federal commission to create standards for states’ programs. That work, however, came to a halt when Donald Trump took office.
For some people, the lasting effects of coronavirus make it a long-term issue. Caitlin Fournier got sick with Covid-19 in March after exposure to infected co-workers at the psychiatric hospital where she works in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She’s confident she contracted Covid-19 at work. “I was so terrified of being the person that kills my unit of patients,” she said, since she works primarily with the elderly. She got her groceries delivered, kept her daughter home from school, and created a “sanitation station” at the entrance to her house. “I was being so cautious in my life that I don’t know how I would have gotten it anywhere else.”
She was out for two weeks, barely able to get off her couch, and then was called back to work at the end of April. Two hours into her first shift, she was hyperventilating and her oxygen levels were dangerously low. She hasn’t worked since. “I can’t walk more than 20 feet without my oxygen level dropping below 90,” she said. It’s so bad that she recently had to cancel her plans to accompany her daughter to her socially distant dance recital because she didn’t think she could handle all the walking and standing. It was the first time she missed seeing her daughter dance on stage.
Fournier counts herself lucky. First, she survived Covid-19. And second, her workers’ comp case was approved for the weeks she was out. But she was supposed to go back to work on light duty at the end of June, then was instead told if she couldn’t go back to her regular duties, she couldn’t come back at all. Her employment terminated, Fournier is now fighting to get ongoing benefits. She’s receiving unemployment, but she worries what will happen when it runs out if she can’t find a job or, worse, can’t physically return to work. “It almost seems like I have to keep proving that I am not faking and I actually can’t breathe,” she said.
Covid-19 is proving for many to have ongoing, debilitating consequences. About 20 percent of O’Connor’s clients are still experiencing long-term problems. A first responder has blood clots in his stomach and can’t return to his job until the condition improves. Another has breathing problems that are keeping him from working. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently found that about a third of people who contracted Covid-19 had not fully recovered two to three weeks later. The workers’ comp system will continue to be called upon to replace wages and cover medical care if people have ongoing complications.
“A lot of people are going to find that they’re going to have problems down the road that they didn’t anticipate,” Crossett said. “We’re going to be working on these cases for a long time, just like we’re working on 9/11 cases.”
Correction: September 14, 2020
Virginia Ligi works in Cheshire, Connecticut, not Hartford.


theintercept--2020-09-05--Journalism's New Propaganda Tool: Using "Confirmed" to Mean Its Opposite

One of the most humiliating journalism debacles of the Trump era played out on December 8 , 2017 , first on CNN and then on MSNBC .
The spectacle kicked off on that Friday morning at 11 a.m. when CNN , deploying its most melodramatic music and graphics designed to convey that a real bombshell was about to be dropped , announced that anonymous sources had provided the network with a smoking gun proving the Trump/Russia conspiracy once and for all : During the 2016 campaign , Donald Trump Jr. had received a September 4 email with a secret encryption @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WikiLeaks ’ servers containing the DNC emails which the group would subsequently release to the public 10 days later .
Cable news and online media spontaneously combusted , as is their wont , in shock , hysteria and awe over this proof that WikiLeaks and Trump were in cahoots .
CNN has ensured that no videos of the festivities are available on YouTube for anyone to watch .
That ’ s because the claim was completely false in its most crucial respect .
CNN misreported the date of the smoking gun email Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to him on September 4 — 10 days prior to WikiLeaks ’ public release , thus enabling secret access — the email was merely sent by a random member of the public after the public release by WikiLeaks ( September 14 ) , encouraging Trump Jr. to look at those now-public emails .
Though the original false report can not be viewed any longer ( except in small snippets from other networks , principally Fox , discussing CNN ’ s debacle ) , one can view the cringe-inducing video of CNN ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the Washington Post debunked the story , that “ we are actually correcting ” the reporting , doing his best to downplay what a massive blunder this was ( though the whole thing is fantastic , my favorite line is when Raju says , with no small amount of understatement , “ This appears to change the understanding of this story , ” followed by , “ Perhaps the initial understanding of what this email was , perhaps is not as significant based on what we know now ” ) : The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story contains this rather significant correction at the top : Correction : This story has been corrected to say the date of the email was September 14 , 2016 , not September 4 , 2016 .
The story also changed the headline and removed a tweet from Donald Trump Jr. , who posted a message about WikiLeaks on September 4 , 2016 .
So mistakes happen in journalism , even huge and embarrassing ones .
Other than some petty schadenfreude , why is this worth remembering ?
The reason is that that sorry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tactic of journalistic deceit .
Very shortly after CNN unveiled its false story , MSNBC ’ s intelligence community spokesman Ken Dilanian went on air and breathlessly announced that he had obtained independent confirmation that the CNN story was true .
In a video segment I can not recommend highly enough , Dilanian was introduced by an incredibly excited Hallie Jackson — who urged Dilanian to “ tell us what we ’ ve just now learned , ” adding , “ I know you and some of our colleagues have confirmed some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” Dilanian then proceeded to explain what he had learned : That ’ s right , Hallie .
Two sources with direct knowledge of this are telling us that congressional investigators have obtained an email from a man named “ Mike Erickson ” — obviously they don ’ t know if that ’ s his real name — offering Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. access to WikiLeaks documents .
… It goes to the heart of the collusion question .
… One of the big questions is : Did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
How could that happen ?
How could MSNBC purport to confirm a false story from CNN ?
Shortly after , CBS News also purported to have “ confirmed ” the same false story : that Trump Jr. received advanced access to the WikiLeaks documents .
It ’ s one thing for a news outlet to make a mistake in reporting by , for instance , misreporting the date of an email and thus getting the story completely wrong .
But how is it possible that multiple other outlets could “ confirm ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s possible because news outlets have completely distorted the term “ confirmation ” beyond all recognition .
Indeed , they now use it to mean the exact opposite of what it actually means , thereby draping themselves in journalistic glory they have not earned and , worse , deceiving the public into believing that an unproven assertion has , in fact , been proven .
With this disinformation method , they are doing the exact opposite of what journalism , at its core , is supposed to do : separate fact from speculation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for this error , but refused to out them by insisting that it was a somehow a good faith mistake rather than deliberate disinformation ( how did multiple “ good faith ” sources all “ accidentally misread ” an email date in the same way ?
CNN , in the spirit of news outlets refusing to provide the accountability and transparency for themselves that they demand from others , refuses to this very day to address that question ) .
But what is clear is that the “ confirmation ” which both MSNBC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story was anything but : All that happened was that the same sources which anonymously whispered these unverified , false claims to CNN then went and repeated the same unverified , false claims to other outlets , which then claimed that they “ independently confirmed ” the story even though they had done nothing of the sort .
It seems the same misleading tactic is now driving the supremely dumb but all-consuming news cycle centered on whether President Trump , as first reported by the Atlantic ’ s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Goldberg claims that “ four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day ” — whom the magazine refuses to name because they fear “ angry tweets ” — told him that Trump made these comments .
Trump , as well as former aides who were present that day ( including Sarah Huckabee Sanders and John Bolton ) , deny that the report is accurate .
So we have anonymous sources making claims on one side , and Trump and former aides ( including Bolton , now a harsh Trump critic ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beyond deciding whether or not to believe Goldberg ’ s story based on what best advances one ’ s political interests , how can one resolve the factual dispute ?
If other media outlets could confirm the original claims from Goldberg , that would obviously be a significant advancement of the story .
Other media outlets — including Associated Press and Fox News — now claim that they did exactly that : “ confirmed ” the Atlantic story .
But if one looks at what they actually did , at what this “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the opposite of what that word would mean , or should mean , in any minimally responsible sense .
AP , for instance , merely claims that “ a senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump ’ s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press , ” while Fox merely said “ a former senior Trump administration official who was in France traveling with the president in November 2018 did confirm other details surrounding that trip.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely happened is that the same sources who claimed to Jeffrey Goldberg , with no evidence , that Trump said this went to other outlets and repeated the same claims — the same tactic that enabled MSNBC and CBS to claim they had “ confirmed ” the fundamentally false CNN story about Trump Jr. receiving advanced access to the WikiLeaks archive .
Or perhaps it was different sources aligned with those original sources and sharing their agenda who repeated these claims .
Given that none of the sources making these claims have the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their fear of mean tweets , it is impossible to know .
But whatever happened , neither AP nor Fox obtained anything resembling “ confirmation.
” They just heard the same assertions that Goldberg heard , likely from the same circles if not the same people , and are now abusing the term “ confirmation ” to mean “ unproven assertions ” or “ unverifiable claims ” ( indeed , Fox now says that “ two sources who were on the trip in question with Trump refuted the main thesis of The Atlantic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should go without saying that none of this means that Trump did not utter these remarks or ones similar to them .
He has made public statements in the past that are at least in the same universe as the ones reported by the Atlantic , and it is quite believable that he would have said something like this ( though the absolute last person who should be trusted with anything , particularly interpreting claims from anonymous sources , is Jeffrey Goldberg , who has risen to one of the most important perches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accurately because of — one of the most disgraceful and damaging records of spreading disinformation in service of the Pentagon and intelligence community ’ s agenda ) .
But journalism is not supposed to be grounded in whether something is “ believable ” or “ seems like it could be true.
” Its core purpose , the only thing that really makes it matter or have worth , is reporting what is true , or at least what evidence reveals .
And that function is completely subverted when news outlets claim that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they did nothing more than just talked to the same people who anonymously whispered the same things to them as were whispered to the original outlet .
Quite aside from this specific story about whether Trump loves The Troops , conflating the crucial journalistic concept of “ confirmation ” with “ hearing the same idle gossip ” or “ unproven assertions ” is a huge disservice .
It is an instrument of propaganda , not reporting .
And its use has repeatedly deceived rather than informed the public .
Anyone who doubts that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and CBS both claimed to have “ confirmed ” a CNN report which turned out to be ludicrously and laughably false .
Clearly , the term “ confirmation ” has lost its meaning in journalism .

One of the most humiliating journalism debacles of the Trump era played out on December 8, 2017, first on CNN and then on MSNBC. The spectacle kicked off on that Friday morning at 11 a.m. when CNN, deploying its most melodramatic music and graphics designed to convey that a real bombshell was about to be dropped, announced that anonymous sources had provided the network with a smoking gun proving the Trump/Russia conspiracy once and for all: During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump Jr. had received a September 4 email with a secret encryption key that gave him advanced access to WikiLeaks’ servers containing the DNC emails which the group would subsequently release to the public 10 days later. Cable news and online media spontaneously combusted, as is their wont, in shock, hysteria and awe over this proof that WikiLeaks and Trump were in cahoots.
CNN has ensured that no videos of the festivities are available on YouTube for anyone to watch. That’s because the claim was completely false in its most crucial respect. CNN misreported the date of the smoking gun email Trump Jr. received: Rather than being sent to him on September 4 — 10 days prior to WikiLeaks’ public release, thus enabling secret access — the email was merely sent by a random member of the public after the public release by WikiLeaks (September 14), encouraging Trump Jr. to look at those now-public emails.
Though the original false report cannot be viewed any longer (except in small snippets from other networks, principally Fox, discussing CNN’s debacle), one can view the cringe-inducing video of CNN’s senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju explaining, after the Washington Post debunked the story, that “we are actually correcting” the reporting, doing his best to downplay what a massive blunder this was (though the whole thing is fantastic, my favorite line is when Raju says, with no small amount of understatement, “This appears to change the understanding of this story,” followed by, “Perhaps the initial understanding of what this email was, perhaps is not as significant based on what we know now”):
The CNN page which originally published the blockbuster story contains this rather significant correction at the top:
Washington (CNN) Correction: This story has been corrected to say the date of the email was September 14, 2016, not September 4, 2016. The story also changed the headline and removed a tweet from Donald Trump Jr., who posted a message about WikiLeaks on September 4, 2016.
So mistakes happen in journalism, even huge and embarrassing ones. Other than some petty schadenfreude, why is this worth remembering? The reason is that that sorry episode reflects a now-common but highly corrosive tactic of journalistic deceit.
Very shortly after CNN unveiled its false story, MSNBC’s intelligence community spokesman Ken Dilanian went on air and breathlessly announced that he had obtained independent confirmation that the CNN story was true. In a video segment I cannot recommend highly enough, Dilanian was introduced by an incredibly excited Hallie Jackson — who urged Dilanian to “tell us what we’ve just now learned,” adding, “I know you and some of our colleagues have confirmed some of this information: What’s up?” Dilanian then proceeded to explain what he had learned:
That’s right, Hallie. Two sources with direct knowledge of this are telling us that congressional investigators have obtained an email from a man named “Mike Erickson” — obviously they don’t know if that’s his real name — offering Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. access to WikiLeaks documents. … It goes to the heart of the collusion question. … One of the big questions is: Did [Trump Jr.] call the FBI?
How could that happen? How could MSNBC purport to confirm a false story from CNN? Shortly after, CBS News also purported to have “confirmed” the same false story: that Trump Jr. received advanced access to the WikiLeaks documents. It’s one thing for a news outlet to make a mistake in reporting by, for instance, misreporting the date of an email and thus getting the story completely wrong. But how is it possible that multiple other outlets could “confirm” the same false report?
It’s possible because news outlets have completely distorted the term “confirmation” beyond all recognition. Indeed, they now use it to mean the exact opposite of what it actually means, thereby draping themselves in journalistic glory they have not earned and, worse, deceiving the public into believing that an unproven assertion has, in fact, been proven. With this disinformation method, they are doing the exact opposite of what journalism, at its core, is supposed to do: separate fact from speculation.
With this disinformation method, they are doing the exact opposite of what journalism, at its core, is supposed to do: separate fact from speculation.
CNN ultimately blamed its anonymous sources for this error, but refused to out them by insisting that it was a somehow a good faith mistake rather than deliberate disinformation (how did multiple “good faith” sources all “accidentally misread” an email date in the same way? CNN, in the spirit of news outlets refusing to provide the accountability and transparency for themselves that they demand from others, refuses to this very day to address that question).
But what is clear is that the “confirmation” which both MSNBC and CBS claimed it had obtained for the story was anything but: All that happened was that the same sources which anonymously whispered these unverified, false claims to CNN then went and repeated the same unverified, false claims to other outlets, which then claimed that they “independently confirmed” the story even though they had done nothing of the sort.
It seems the same misleading tactic is now driving the supremely dumb but all-consuming news cycle centered on whether President Trump, as first reported by the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, made disparaging comments about The Troops. Goldberg claims that “four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day” — whom the magazine refuses to name because they fear “angry tweets” — told him that Trump made these comments. Trump, as well as former aides who were present that day (including Sarah Huckabee Sanders and John Bolton), deny that the report is accurate.
So we have anonymous sources making claims on one side, and Trump and former aides (including Bolton, now a harsh Trump critic) insisting that the story is inaccurate. Beyond deciding whether or not to believe Goldberg’s story based on what best advances one’s political interests, how can one resolve the factual dispute? If other media outlets could confirm the original claims from Goldberg, that would obviously be a significant advancement of the story.
Other media outlets — including Associated Press and Fox News — now claim that they did exactly that: “confirmed” the Atlantic story. But if one looks at what they actually did, at what this “confirmation” consists of, it is the opposite of what that word would mean, or should mean, in any minimally responsible sense. AP, for instance, merely claims that “a senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of the remarks to The Associated Press,” while Fox merely said “a former senior Trump administration official who was in France traveling with the president in November 2018 did confirm other details surrounding that trip.”
In other words, all that likely happened is that the same sources who claimed to Jeffrey Goldberg, with no evidence, that Trump said this went to other outlets and repeated the same claims — the same tactic that enabled MSNBC and CBS to claim they had “confirmed” the fundamentally false CNN story about Trump Jr. receiving advanced access to the WikiLeaks archive. Or perhaps it was different sources aligned with those original sources and sharing their agenda who repeated these claims. Given that none of the sources making these claims have the courage to identify themselves, due to their fear of mean tweets, it is impossible to know.
But whatever happened, neither AP nor Fox obtained anything resembling “confirmation.” They just heard the same assertions that Goldberg heard, likely from the same circles if not the same people, and are now abusing the term “confirmation” to mean “unproven assertions” or “unverifiable claims” (indeed, Fox now says that “two sources who were on the trip in question with Trump refuted the main thesis of The Atlantic’s reporting”).
It should go without saying that none of this means that Trump did not utter these remarks or ones similar to them. He has made public statements in the past that are at least in the same universe as the ones reported by the Atlantic, and it is quite believable that he would have said something like this (though the absolute last person who should be trusted with anything, particularly interpreting claims from anonymous sources, is Jeffrey Goldberg, who has risen to one of the most important perches in journalism despite — or, more accurately because of — one of the most disgraceful and damaging records of spreading disinformation in service of the Pentagon and intelligence community’s agenda).
But journalism is not supposed to be grounded in whether something is “believable” or “seems like it could be true.” Its core purpose, the only thing that really makes it matter or have worth, is reporting what is true, or at least what evidence reveals. And that function is completely subverted when news outlets claim that they “confirmed” a previous report when they did nothing more than just talked to the same people who anonymously whispered the same things to them as were whispered to the original outlet.
Quite aside from this specific story about whether Trump loves The Troops, conflating the crucial journalistic concept of “confirmation” with “hearing the same idle gossip” or “unproven assertions” is a huge disservice. It is an instrument of propaganda, not reporting. And its use has repeatedly deceived rather than informed the public. Anyone who doubts that should review how it is that MSNBC and CBS both claimed to have “confirmed” a CNN report which turned out to be ludicrously and laughably false. Clearly, the term “confirmation” has lost its meaning in journalism.