Saturday, February 20, 2016

N.M. Field and Dairy Laborers Win Right To Workers’ Comp—Court Calls Exemption ‘Absurd’

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N.M. Field and Dairy Laborers Win Right To Workers’ Comp—Court Calls Exemption ‘Absurd’

BY Joseph Sorrentino

 

New Mexico dairy farm work can be hazardous.   (Joseph Sorrentino)

The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled in June that excluding field and ranch workers from workers’ comp protection is unconstitutional. It was the second victory for New Mexico’s farmworkers in less than a year—and that’s big news in a low-wage sector made up primarily of immigrant workers, where victories tend to be few and far between.

The first victory came last August when farmworkers finally started getting paid the correct minimum wage. Farmworkers were routinely, and incorrectly, paid the federal minimum when they were entitled to the New Mexican minimum wage, which is 25 cents per hour higher. It only amounts to $8 or $10 a week, but it is significant for these workers, who are among the poorest in the United States.

And now, after six years of legal battles, the state Court of Appeals has upheld a District Court ruling that New Mexico’s farmworkers are not to be excluded from workers’ comp protection.

Farm work is among the most dangerous jobs in the United States, consistently ranking in the top 10 for injuries and death. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that 167 agricultural workers are injured every day. Despite this, only 12 states require full workers’ comp for farmworkers (13 now, including New Mexico); it’s optional in 16 states and required but limited in 21 others. Until the Court of Appeals’ decision, workers’ comp wasn’t required for New Mexico’s field workers or for ranch employees who worked directly with animals. That meant that on a dairy, for example, truck drivers and bookkeepers were covered, but milkers and workers moving the cows weren’t.

As In These Times reported in December 2014, on-the-job injuries are the rule, not the exception, in New Meixco's dairy industry, and the lack of workers’ comp left some workers in dire economic straits:

Working with large animals poses a real risk of injury. In 2012, attorney Tess Wilkes was part of a team at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty (NMCLP) that interviewed about 60 workers from various dairies in the state. Almost 80 percent of the workers said they had never received any safety training.

Most of the cows are docile, but not all. “The younger ones are dangerous,” says Antonio Jiménez, who worked in a dairy outside of Roswell during high school. “They don’t know how to be milked and [they] kick. Sometimes the ones that have just given birth [are dangerous], too.” The NMCLP survey found that 53 percent of the workers interviewed had been injured on the job, often more than once, and sometimes seriously.

In March, Matías Soto was working as a milker at a dairy in southeastern New Mexico. Somehow, a bull had gotten mixed in with the cows and stuck in one of the milking parlor gates. As Soto was trying to free the bull, he says, “It lowered its head and attacked me, lifting me 6 or 7 feet in the air. I hit my head on the concrete floor.” His skull fractured. But, he says, he wasn’t taken to the ER in Artesia, about 40 miles away, for three hours. He then had to be airlifted to a hospital capable of handling his injury. The cost of the helicopter alone was more than $60,000, and Soto’s hospital bills were in “the tens of thousands of dollars,” says María Martínez Sánchez, a former attorney at the NMCLP who worked with Soto. And the dairy had no workers’ compensation insurance.

Its medical insurance covered Soto’s medical bills, but not all of the helicopter costs. Instead, says Martínez Sánchez, Soto went into debt, borrowing from friends and relatives, although he eventually received a small amount of money in a settlement with the dairy.

In 2009 NMCLP filed suit challenging the exclusion on behalf of three injured workers who had been denied workers’ comp based solely on the exclusion. Attorneys from the organization argued that excluding farm and ranch workers violated the state constitution’s equal protection clause. 

In 2011, 2nd District Court Judge Valerie Huling ruled that the exclusion is, in fact, unconstitutional. The New Mexico Workers’ Comp Administration (WCA) appealed that decision, stating that the District Court had overstepped its jurisdiction. The WCA lost that appeal, and the three workers in the lawsuit had their cases heard and were awarded workers’ comp benefits. But the WCA argued that the District Court ruling applied only to those three workers. Employers took that as a cue to continue routinely denying coverage to all other farmworkers.

In February of this year, NMCLP attorney Tim Davis challenged that interpretation in a suit on behalf of two injured workers who had been denied workers’ comp benefits. Noe Rodriguez suffered a head injury when he was attacked by a bull at the dairy farm at which he worked and Maria Angélica Aguierre broke her arm when she slipped and fell in a chile field. The New Mexico Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the District Court’s ruling that the exclusion was unconstitutional . The court stated, “Our review of the history of workers’ compensation statutes back to 1929 has not revealed an articulable purpose for the exclusion” and that the exclusion was “without purpose or reason and leads to absurd results.”

The ruling doesn’t mean that Rodriquez and Aguierre will automatically receive workers’ comp benefits, bu it means that their claims, and the claims of other injured farmworkers, can now be heard.

Maria Martínez Sánchez, one of the lead attorneys on the 2009 case, says she is “very happy” with the appellate opinion. “This ruling finally tells agricultural employers that they ... must care for their workers in the same way all other employers in New Mexico are required to do,” she says.

While advocates are heartened by the Court of Appeals ruling, they’re also realistic. Farmworkers in New Mexico and across the United States continue to work under harsh conditions for little pay. The majority of states don’t offer farmworkers full workers’ comp benefits; most deny them overtime pay and the right to collective bargaining. Wage theft is rampant, as is sexual harassment and abuse. As Martínez Sánchez says, “There’s still much work to be done.”

ABOVE IS FROM:  http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18214/n.m._field_and_dairy_laborers_win_the_right_to_workers_compexemption_was_ab

 

Rauner: State Takeover Of CPS “Very Likely”

 

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CHICAGO (CBS) — A day after the Illinois State Board of Education launched a financial probe of the Chicago Public Schools, Gov. Bruce Rauner said he believes state lawmakers eventually will give him power to take control of the Chicago school system.

On Thursday, ISBE asked CPS to turn over a massive amount of monetary data by the first week of March – including information about bonds, cash flow, payroll and contracts.

On Friday, Rauner said the state investigation of CPS finances will highlight “financial mismanagement, patronage, too much bureaucracy, misappropriation of funds, not paying into the pensions; just mismanagement, and we’ve got to fix that.”

The governor said the way to fix the district’s budget woes it is a state takeover of the school system, something the Illinois General Assembly has not authorized.

“If Chicago Public Schools continues just to say ‘Send cash, we’re out of money, we’re going to have to fire thousands of teachers,’ I think the legislature will say, ‘No, that’s not a good scenario. We should have the state Board of Education take over.’ I believe that’s very likely,” he said.

However, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton have shot down the governor’s proposal to allow him the power to have the Illinois State Board of Education take control of CPS.

Rauner said he’s confident lawmakers will okay a state takeover of CPS eventually.

“I personally believe once the legislature really understands what’s going on, they will give us that authority. I believe that that is coming and that will happen. Once the facts are known, I believe that they’ll give us that authority. There are some lawyers who believe that the state board does have the authority themselves unilaterally to take over. I’m not sure I agree with them. There may be a legal fight about that. I don’t know, I’m not an attorney,” he said.

The governor also said bankruptcy is still a good option for CPS.

CPS officials have blamed the governor for the extremely high interest rates the district was forced to pay earlier this month when it borrowed $725 million to keep the system afloat through the end of the school year.

“The last time Governor Rauner offered his financial advice for Chicago Public Schools, Chicago taxpayers were forced to pay even more for our bonds, and we cringe at what his latest venture could cost our children,” district spokeswoman Emily Bittner said Thursday in response to the ISBE financial investigation.

Above is from:  http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/02/19/rauner-state-takeover-of-cps-very-likely/

My View: Boone County breakup with Belvidere planning department a very bad move

By Cathy Ward

Posted Feb. 20, 2016 at 10:39 AM

The Boone County Board voted 8-4 Wednesday to terminate its decades-old cooperative planning agreement with the city of Belvidere.
This termination ends years of sharing costs, expertise and frank talks among various planning groups and elected and appointed officials on dozens of planning issues.
I consider this divorce a very bad move since Boone County leaders have not analyzed costs, ramifications, reactions or any pertinent details of this breakup.
Chairman Bob Walberg has urged county leaders to trash the plan for months and convinced the majority board members that working with the city on plans that effect all 55,000 residents should end.
Board members voting with Walberg were Jeff Carlisle, Denny Ellingson, Karl Johnson, Sherry Giesecke, Ray Larson, Brad Stark and new board member Cory Lind.
The four opposed, who argued long and hard against the breakup, were Sherry Branson, Ken Freeman, Craig Schultz and me.
Walberg has made no secret of his dislike of the joint planning staff for months, with much of the dislike stemming from the long-debated wind-farm proposal, which Walberg staunchly opposes.
The planning staff has tried diligently to follow only the law.
Little by little, Walberg has filled as many vacancies as possible on boards and committees with anti-wind farm supporters, but since the planning department was currently a joint agreement with the city, he could not fire the two-member planning staff without approval of Belvidere Mayor Mike Chamberlain or former Mayor Fred Brereton. Neither would bow to his plan.
Interim Planning Director Kathy Miller recently announced she is leaving the department and Walberg used her departure as a reason to break up the agreement. He wants a cracker-jack planner to answer to him.
Walberg said most of the work of the planning department has been for the city, which is obviously not true, as the wind-farm debates lingered for years with hundred of hours of county work for the planning staff.
I repeated for months that we need to keep working as closely as possible with our friends in the city, as at least half the people who live in the county live in the city.
Walberg said that once a planner is hired, the city could pay the county for those services. Chamberlain, who was not aware until recently of the vote last week, said that will not happen. He said the city would hire its own consultants.
A divorce of this kind is nonsense. The repercussions will be endless. Why should the city ever contact the county on pre-annexations or any other plans with this breakup in place?
Unless County Board members vote to reconsider soon, this will be a problem of intergovernmental work for a long time.

Cathy Ward is a member of the Boone County Board.

Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/opinion/20160220/my-view-boone-county-breakup-with-belvidere-planning-department-very-bad-move