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12 CapitalPress.com July 21, 2017 Treatment and examinations at the mobile clinic are free Western migrant worker insurance coverage, 2014 * HEALTH from Page 1 It’s fair to say Garside’s work is widely admired with- in the wine and medical pro- fessions. One vineyard owner described her as “the rock of the whole place.” Garside said the work is re- warding. Routine blood pres- sure and cholesterol checks provide early warning of hy- pertension, cardiovascular problems and diabetes. Flu shots and tetanus vaccinations aid people who routinely work outdoors and handle sharp tools, wire and the soil. Some workers migrate to jobs depending on what is in season, others juggle two or three jobs, both of which com- plicate the time and expense of traditional doctor appoint- ments. Some put off seeking help with medical problems, which can become worse with lack of intervention. For others, hospital emergency rooms, open all hours, become the treatment option for even minor injuries or illnesses. When she was asked to ad- vise and then take over ¡Salud! in 1998, Garside insisted the service had to be holistic to be effective. “For some workers, this is it,” Garside said of ¡Salud! “Bringing the services to them fi lls the gap on that.” Treatment and examina- tions at the mobile clinic are free. If the patient is referred to a partnering clinic or agen- cy for further care, a stipend is paid to the provider by ¡Salud! on behalf of the patient and the patient is responsible for the balance. Those treated at a fa- cility designated as a federally qualifi ed health center can pay on a sliding fee scale based on income. ¡Salud! partners with Pacif- ic University in Forest Grove, Ore., which sends a motor- home to accompany the Tual- ity Healthcare van. University students and faculty provide vision, dental and physical therapy exams and treatment. Tuality pays Pacifi c a stipend for its help; the students gain practical experience as they prepare for medical careers. (Aged 18 years or older) Uninsured: 50% Medicaid/ CHIP † : 33% Private: 11% Medicare: 5% Other: More than 1% NOTE: Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding. * Study includes 70 migrant health centers treating 574,687 patients. † Childrens Health Insurance Program Source: National Center for Farmworker Health Alan Kenaga/Capital Press Photos by Eric Mortenson/Capital Press Andrea Lara Silva shares a laugh with a vineyard worker during a mobile medical clinic stop at Stoller Vineyards. Silva, who was a physician in Argentina, said the clinic experience of taking care directly to vineyard workers has opened her eyes to broader public health issues. Other partners receiving sti- pends include community clinics and Medical Teams In- ternational. “We collaborate with other agencies to bring services,” Garside said. “We stretch that dollar until it’s ready to snap.” Jose Reyna, a physical therapy professor at Pacifi c University, regularly accom- panies the ¡Salud! van each summer. Vineyard workers often have lower back pain from stooping and lifting, and sore wrists and shoulders from repetitive picking or pruning motions are a common ail- ment. Reyna and his students provide massage and demon- strate stretching techniques. The wine industry’s fi nan- cial support for the service shows it is invested in the people who do “very taxing labor,” he said. “Who else is going to har- vest the grapes and tighten the lines?” Reyna asked. Local solution A 2014 survey by the Na- tional Center for Farmwork- er Health, based in Texas, showed poverty is “perva- sive” among the nation’s 3 million migrant and seasonal Pacifi c University physical therapy professor Jose Reyna helps a White Rose Estate vineyard worker with stretching exercises to ease back pain. University students and faculty cooperate with Tu- ality Healthcare’s ¡Salud! Services to give vineyard workers dental, vision and physical therapy checkups. agricultural workers. About 30 percent of families report- ed total family income below national poverty guidelines. “One of the biggest dichot- omies with the agricultural worker population is that de- spite providing the hard work behind the foods that sustain us, they are a group that re- ceives very few benefi ts and protections, and are frequent- ly excluded from regulatory labor protections,” the center concluded in a 2017 report. Access to health care is a major problem, with workers hampered in some cases by language or cultural barriers, a lack of money or transporta- tion, low literacy and frequent mobility, according to the farmworker health center. In the Pacifi c Northwest and California, agricultur- al workers had higher rates of asthma, hypertension and obesity than elsewhere. The Midwest had the highest prevalence of diabetes among farmworkers. Tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, and sexu- ally transmitted diseases are problems to varying degrees nationally. ¡Salud! grew from discus- sions in the early 1990s be- tween a handful of vineyard owners and Tuality Health- care doctors who had become acquainted due to a shared in- terest in fi ne wine. Nancy Ponzi, of the pio- neering Ponzi Vineyards in Sherwood, Ore., said the idea of a fundraising event perco- lated and emerged as a com- mitment to “do something to help our workers, especially the fi eld workers who are at the bottom of the heap in terms of having access to so- cial programs.” “To my great surprise and pleasure,” Ponzi said, “the wineries were all for that.” Ponzi said she originally presumed family planning would be one of the most important things the industry could offer Latino workers, but soon learned otherwise. “This culture does not want to discuss family plan- ning,” she said. “What they need help with is health.” Then, as now, the vintners heard angry grumbles about health care costs, immigration policies and illegal “aliens” taking “American” jobs. Pro- viding them health care was controversial. “We were aware it was a political statement at the time,” Ponzi said. “We knew it was political, which was the reason I was happy to see the wine industry step up in spite of possible repercussions.” Convincing the cautious medical bureaucracy to go along also took some doing. Ponzi said she and the oth- er advocates countered with, “Look, if we can give service to this population and keep them out of the emergency room, that’s a big help to the hospital.” The industry’s two-day ¡Salud! auction and black tie gala, held in November, pro- vides about 90 percent of the funding needed to staff and pay for Tuality Healthcare’s mobile clinic, the staff’s case management work and part- ner agency stipends. A “Sum- mertime ¡Salud!” fundraising dinner and tasting has been added as well. It’s on July 27 this year at Stoller Family Es- tate, tickets are $175 per per- son. Ponzi said the program could be adopted by other ag sectors, such as the nursery industry, but so far it hasn’t been replicated. She said the workforce deserves support. “We respect what they do,” she said. “This is not charity. It’s an obligation to protect these workers and their fam- ilies.” ‘Public land is not a political issue, it’s an American issue’ ZINKE from Page 1 Any changes to the na- tional monument would be based on science — specifi cal- ly, which areas contain water- sheds, plants, animals, soils and geological features that should be protected, Zinke said. Zinke is also examining how the boundaries affect tra- ditional economic uses, such as grazing and timber, as well as recreational uses, includ- ing hiking, snowmobiling and horseback riding. A top concern is that man- aging the land as a wilderness increases the amount of fuels that can contribute to a cata- strophic fi re, he said. Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, left, and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., speak Saturday about the borders of the Cascade-Siskiyou Nation- al Monument at Hyatt Lake, which abuts the monument. “Burning habitat down is not acceptable,” Zinke said. Grazing is an important industry in the region, but it’s also a tool to keep those fuels in check, said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who accompanied Zin- ke on the two-day trip. “Cattle can play a produc- tive role,” Walden said. Legal precedents have made clear that presidents can modify national monuments — it has occurred 18 times in the past, Zinke said. The law is less certain when it comes to an outright rescission of a monument, Zinke said. Such a decision would have to be substantially jus- tifi ed by the science, he said. National monuments have been controversial since the fi rst one — the Devils Tower in Wyoming — was desig- nated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Zinke said. Such designations have protected some of the greatest national treasures in the U.S., he said. At the same time, Zinke said he’s a strong advocate of multiple uses for public lands. “Public land is not a po- litical issue, it’s an American issue,” he said. During a stop at Hyatt Lake, which abuts the mon- ument, Zinke was greeted by supporters and opponents of the monument. Robin Haptonstall said he didn’t believe the expansion was legal because much of it encompassed “O&C Lands” that the federal government dedicated to timber produc- tion. As a rancher, Haptonstall said he’s also worried about the previously proposed Siski- you Crest National Monument, which could affect his property. “I’m trying to stop this dis- ease,” he said. Bonnie Johnson, a monu- ment neighbor who supports the expansion, said the Cas- cade-Siskiyou is a major tour- ist draw. “It’s like a cathedral,” she said. “It’s a spiritual experience.” The expansion is neces- sary to ensure the survival of native plants and animals, Johnson said. “You can’t confi ne them in a little island of protection,” she said. Seasonal harvest need peaks at about 100,000 workers in early September LABOR from Page 1 “There are no more mi- grant seasonal workers. All of them are local, domestic people who prefer full-time jobs and are getting them in agriculture and construction,” said Dan Fazio, director of WAFLA in Olympia, former- ly known as the Washington Farm Labor Association. Seasonal harvest need peaks at about 100,000 workers in early September in Washington and there appears to be around 50,000 local, domestic workers willing to do seasonal work, he said. About 15,000 workers will come via the H-2A visa foreign guestworker program, mostly operated in Washington by WAFLA. “So we will be short big time during peak harvest and I’m hearing it won’t be un- common for growers to ask domestic workers to work sev- en days per week. They can’t with H-2A, but they can ask domestic workers,” Fazio said. The H-2A program is ex- pensive, requiring growers to provide housing and pay workers’ transportation be- tween the orchard and their country of origin. Processing of H-2A visas by federal agencies sped up this year under the Trump ad- ministration, which has been a big help, Fazio said. Reggie Collins, general manager of Chelan Fruit Co- operative in Chelan, Wash., said he was short 400 job ap- plicants for packing cherries, three weeks before start of cherry harvest in June. He ad- vertised in other states and got all the help he needed. He also paid higher wages, $12 per hour for day shift and $13.38, the minimum wage for H-2A workers, for night shifts, plus overtime. There’s more of a shortage in orchard pickers but not to the point that crops aren’t get- ting picked, said Tom Riggan, general manager of Chelan Fresh Marketing. B.J. Thurlby, president of the Washington State Fruit Commission and Northwest Cherry Growers, said he hasn’t heard of any labor issues. “There will never be enough (pickers), but I haven’t heard of a single grower who couldn’t get picked,” Thurlby said. Doug Drescher, a small- scale cherry grower in Orondo, Wash., said picker turnover is heavy in his Rainier cherries. Pickers would rather pick red cherries because they are fast- er since they don’t have to sort out culls or separate stems, he said. He’s had enough workers, he said, because he’s one of the later orchards in the area due to mountain shade. Some 12 to 15 pickers per day were stopping at his place looking for work the fi rst week of July but by the second week they had moved north, he said. Drescher pays piece rate but said a neighboring grow- er with H-2A workers expe- rienced slower production because he was paying the $13.38 per hour H-2A mini- mum instead of a higher piece rate. Not all growers have expe- rienced reduced productivity when shifting from piece rate to hourly and no surveys have assessed it, Fazio said. “We’re seeing more H-2A workers used in cherries this year than last and the year before there were none,” Fazio said, noting that’s an indicator of a shortage. He knows of one grower, he said, who uses domestic work- ers on piece rate for red cherries and H-2A workers on hourly rate for Rainier because the fruit bruises easier and he wants slower picking for quality. Many Washington tree fruit companies have turned increasingly to H-2A in recent years to meet their labor needs. Zirkle Fruit Co., Yakima, employs about 3,000 H-2A workers annually and Gebbers Farms, Brewster, hires 2,000. Broetje Orchards, in Prescott, Auvil Fruit, in Oron- do, and Orchard View Farms, The Dalles, Ore., say they still make it solely with domestic workers by paying well but may have to turn to H-2A in coming years. Broetje is the largest of those three with more than 5,000 acres in the Tri-Cities. Broetje employs about 2,200 workers for picking and pack- ing cherries and about 4,000 during apple harvest, accord- ing to Chuck Zeutenhorst, general manager of First Fruits Marketing of Washington, in Yakima, Broetje’s marketing arm. “So far we’re getting along OK, but I’ve heard inklings of guys struggling on labor,” Ze- utenhorst said. “The real deal is apples. We’re still very, very con- cerned about that because hops have gotten bigger and others competing for workers. I don’t think there’s enough la- bor to harvest the apple crop, industry wide and including our company,” he said. He has said someday the company may turn to H-2A. Auvil Fruit hires about 220 workers for cherries and 600 to 700 in apples. “We just fi nished cherries and we had plenty of labor, but as we get bigger it could be a shortage,” said John Baile, Auvil’s assistant orchard man- ager. For the moment, the com- pany believes it can get enough apple pickers but is investigat- ing H-2A for possibly 2018 or 2019, Baile said. Auvil does a lot of col- or picking, multiple passes through its orchards to pick fruit at the right maturity for optimum quality. Some pick- ers don’t like that so turnover can be heavy, he said. Orchard View Farms is the largest cherry grower in Ore- gon with about 2,400 acres. It pays well with piece rates av- eraging $20 per hour. “We’ve been fi ne. Pick- ers are picking a lot of fruit and doing well. The pack- ing house has a lot of good hours,” said Brenda Thomas, president. The company is not expe- riencing a shortage this year but there are no extra people looking for work, she has said. “Labor is tight but we’re getting by,” said Kevin Corl- iss, vice president of viticul- ture at Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Prosser, the state’s largest winery. Mike Williamson, tree fruit and grape grower in Caldwell, Idaho, said labor is fairly tight and demand is up due to in- creases in hops, grape vine retraining and a strong pull in construction. He’s cautiously optimis- tic he’ll have the 30 seasonal workers he needs at peak in late August and early Septem- ber and hopes his crew of 15 for vine retraining now stays on through then.
