Farmworker death draws state scrutiny in Okanogan County, where COVID-19 cases are spiking

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Re: Farmworker death draws state scrutiny in Okanogan County, where COVID-19 cases are spiking

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Found on Methownet BB... (Red Rhonda)

Also interesting the article today in the Wenatchee World about the recent Covid19 death of a Gebbers employee.
Here is a cut and paste of the article:

BREWSTER — Earl Edwards was a Jamaican farmer who in the winter grew ginger, garlic and other crops on his tropical island nation homeland in the Caribbean. For the past decade, he would head north each year for seasonal work at Gebbers Farms. This year, he did so amid a global coronavirus pandemic that sickened him and — on July 31 — took his life.

His death is now part of an ongoing state investigation into conditions at Gebbers Farms labor camps.

The 63-year-old spent his final days in an isolation camp, talking several times a day to his wife, Marcia Smith Edwards. He told her he was weak and sick and hoped to return to Jamaica.


“He said, ‘I want to come home. ... I am feeling like a fish out of water. ... Nobody cares for us here,’” Marcia recalls.

Edwards’ widow is grieving, and she is angry. She says her husband should have been monitored more closely by a doctor or other trained medical professional at the isolation camp, and that Gebbers Farms should have offered him more support.

Edwards’ death due to COVID-19 complications — confirmed to The Seattle Times by the Okanogan County coroner — is the second coronavirus death of a guest worker employed at Gebbers Farm. Some workers now say they want to leave early.

Amy Philpott, a spokeswoman for Gebbers Farms, said the company sent someone daily to check on workers in the isolation camp — including Edwards, who Philpott said had appeared to be improving — and provided free food and medicine, as well as help filling out forms for any state financial assistance available to those unable to work.

Marcia said she was not aware of anyone checking on her husband in the days before he died.

State and county involvement
Even before Edwards’ death, Gebbers Farm was the target of a Washington state Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) investigation into compliance with state rules to slow the virus’s spread. At least 120 workers have tested positive and at least another 156 have shown symptoms and been quarantined.

In July, as part of its investigation, L&I made a rare move by issuing “an order and notice of restraint” that required Gebbers to either remove bunk beds in camps or comply with a state rule that camp workers be in groups that live, travel and labor together.


L&I spokesperson Tim Church said the company had requested a variance to allow larger groups to be formed, but that request hadn’t been granted.

In a July statement, Gebbers Farms chief executive Cass Gebbers said the state’s “accusations ... are simply false” and that workers already are properly separated into distinct groups that live and work together, although the company cannot dictate what happens during off-duty hours.

This week — in a separate educational effort — state L&I and Employment Security Department staff spoke with some 200 workers to provide information about workplace safety, paid sick leave and other state benefits.

State and county officials have been scrambling to grasp the scope of the virus’s spread in Okanogan County, which — though largely rural and sparsely populated — is now one of the Northwest’s hot spots. Most of the county’s nearly 800 cases have been in the Brewster area, where Gebbers Farms is headquartered. Beginning next week, National Guard members from Washington state will help provide mobile testing around the county, said Lauri Jones of the Okanogan County Health District.

County officials have praised Gebbers’ efforts to control the coronavirus at its network of Okanogan County labor camps. And Philpott says the company is following all recommended guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Our hearts go out to the more than 700,000 families around the world who have lost loved ones to this unprecedented global pandemic. We will continue to support the health and well-being of our employees and our community by following public health recommendations,” said a statement from Philpott.


Workers consider leaving rather than risk the virus
A different view of the situation has emerged from interviews with guest workers by a United Farm Workers investigator who traveled to Okanogan County earlier this week. At a camp south of Brewster, Mexican workers told the union they feared the virus, and that many of their colleagues already had quit their jobs and headed home before the start of the upcoming apple harvest season.

They said they were wary of acknowledging illness symptoms to supervisors and getting sent to recover in an isolation camp, where they worried they’d get inadequate care and lose wages for missing work days.

“They were scared of those camps,” said Victoria Ruddy, the Pacific Northwest regional director for the United Farm Workers, which does not represent any Gebbers employees but has been looking into the situation due to calls from concerned workers.

Ruddy said she visited an isolation camp with six workers, none of whom said they were receiving care from a medical professional.

Some Jamaican workers also are deciding they want to end their jobs with Gebbers, according to one worker, who said he was living with six other men in a small camp cabin.

“Earl Edwards was a friend of mine. I feel so bad for him. If a guy is sick, you should pay him better attention,” said the worker, who insisted on anonymity due to concerns about workplace retaliation.

Philpott said she didn’t know how many workers were heading home early but that some opt to do so every year.

Testing was another concern. Workers told Ruddy they’d heard from their colleagues about coronavirus tests that could cost hundreds of dollars. So, even if they felt sick, they were reluctant to go to town to see a doctor.


A Brewster hospital official said some free community testing has been available to those who couldn’t pay, but if workers showed up at the hospital emergency room with symptoms, they would typically have been billed.

‘Your husband is not well’
Marcia Smith Edwards said her husband typically did outdoor work for Gebbers Farms, which is a major Eastern Washington fruit producer. But this year, he had a difficult indoor job working in a fruit packing plant.

One night, he called her to say he wasn’t going to work because he felt a bit stuffy and was coughing. She urged him to see a doctor who could test for COVID-19, which he did. But during his 10 days in the isolation camp, she said, he was never able to learn the results. (A postmortem test on Edwards came back positive, said Okanogan County Coroner David Rodriguez.)

Edwards also took his wife’s advice to try some home remedies, such as boiled ginger. But his symptoms persisted, and he kept telling her, “Your husband is not well.”

The couple have two daughters, one of whom was the last to speak to Edwards.

“He said, ‘I love you, and I’m going to get a shower,’” Marcia Smith Edwards recalled him saying to their daughter.
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Farmworker death draws state scrutiny in Okanogan County, where COVID-19 cases are spiking

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https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... e-spiking/

After a Mexican orchard worker died earlier this month from COVID 19 complications, the state Department of Labor & Industries is demanding changes in the farm labor camps of a major eastern Washington fruit grower that employed the man in Okanogan County.

The “order and notice of restraint” results from several site visits in an investigation of a Gebbers Farms’ labor camp where the worker, who died July 8, was lodged. The notice requires Gebbers to either remove bunk beds in this and other company labor camps, or comply with a state rule that requires camp workers to be in groups that live, travel and labor together.

“We take this very seriously. The choice is pretty simple. Stop using bunk beds or follow all the requirements,” said Tim Church, a Labor & Industries spokesman who added that the unusual action reflects the risks of the disease spreading to other workers.

Failure to comply with the order carries the risk of criminal penalties.

In a statement, the family-own company’s chief executive officer, Cass Gebbers, disputed the Labor department’s description of their COVID-19 protocols, which he said were reviewed by a consultant who also serves as a program officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“The accusations … are simply false,” Gebbers said in the statement that declared workers already are properly separated into distinct groups that live and work together, although the company cannot dictate what happens during off-duty hours.

The state investigation comes at a time of rapid spread of COVID-19 in Okanogan, a largely rural county with a population of fewer than 44,000. As of data released Friday, 551 people in Okanogan County have tested positive, a more than 10-fold increase from the beginning of June.

Gebbers is an Okanogan County powerhouse, one of the biggest apple growers in the Pacific Northwest and a global provider of cherries. To grow and harvest this orchard fruit, the company employs some 4,500 people, about half of whom are guest workers who labor seasonally through a temporary agricultural visa program and another half of whom are local.

Since the novel coronavirus pandemic began earlier this year, 120 workers have tested positive for COVID-19. Another 156 employees showed symptoms and either are awaiting test results under quarantine, or are going through a full quarantine because they did not want to be tested, according to the statement released by Gebbers.

These employees reside in farm labor camps that have been a major concern for state health officials trying to reduce the spread of the virus among agricultural laborers who are part of the essential workforce.

To reduce risks, state officials, working with industry and labor groups, developed COVID-19 rules for camps that were published this spring.

In Okanogan, Gebbers’ efforts to combat COVID-19 have garnered praise from county health officials.

“It is clear that Gebbers Farms has gone to great lengths and expenses to keep its workers safe during the current COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote Dr. John McCarthy, health officer for Okanogan County Health in a July 18 letter to Cass Gebbers that commended the company’s “stringent COVID-19 protocols.”

Testing seeks extent of outbreak
The state investigation of Gebbers began after the United Farm Workers (UFW) received reports from about a half dozen company workers about the spread of COVID-19 at a labor camp near Brewster.

Those workers were frustrated they could not get testing, said Erik Nicholson, a UFW national vice president based in Eastern Washington.

“They were terrified that they might get sick, and feared they would be sent back to Mexico if they caused problems,” said Nicholson, who made a referral about their complaints — and the worker death — to the state.

In recent weeks, the COVID-19 outbreak has spurred expanded community testing of more than 400 people, including seasonal farm workers whom Gebbers encouraged to participate and offered transportation to the site where swab samples were taken.

More than 45% of the tests — offered for free — came back positive, which is more than seven times higher than the state’s positive rate, according to Scott Graham, chief executive of Three Rivers Hospital in Brewster.
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