The shutdown of the Foster Farms plant this week due to coronavirus deaths exposes lapses in one of the most dangerous workplace sectors.
Labor experts and advocates for workers have said the deaths show a need for authorities to pay greater attention to workplace safety in the Central Valley. Critics say officials have long paid insufficient scrutiny to workplace safety hazards in this part of California.
Although the Central Valley has among the highest number of complaints and accidents, workplace safety inspections in this part of California have yielded fewer violations per inspection than other parts of the state, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center.
SAN FRANCISCO
The death of a 12th Foster Farms worker from COVID-19 in California’s Central Valley is raising new concerns about safety at such food processing facilities.
The worker’s family said the employee, who was of Punjabi descent and in his 50s, had been called back into the Foster Farms poultry processing plant on Cherry Avenue in Fresno, got sick with COVID-19 and spent the last three weeks in an intensive care unit before dying over the weekend, according to Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, a Central Valley youth and family nonprofit that works with the Punjabi Sikh community.
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