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.