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Inside AFOP

Register Now for AFOP’s 2024 National Conference

AFOP

July 2, 2024

AFOP’s National Conference is less than three months away!  Registration is open, so make your reservations now.  AFOP members do not need an invitation to register.  Early bird rates are $625, regular rates are $695.

AFOP Partners with Workforce180 to Provide Workforce Development Training in 2024-2025

AFOP

June 27, 2024

AFOP is pleased to announce that it has selected Mike Fazio of Workforce180 as the new trainer for the AFOP Training Institute (ATI) for 2024-2025.  Mr. Fazio is the Co-President of Workforce180 and Metrix Learning, both well-known industry organizations specializing in assisting both job seekers and industry professionals through training, podcasting and marketing.


This year, ATI will offer certification in TWO areas:  Business Services and Leadership Development.  Business Services will train participants on the most effective ways to approach and communicate with people.  Leadership Development will empower you to recognize and develop your unique leadership style whether you’re an emerging leader team member or seasoned executive.


Interested?  Join us!!  Register here.

MEMBERS CORNER

Inside USDOL

President Biden Announces OSHA Federal Heat Standard

AFOP

July 2, 2024

History was made last week when President Biden announced the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) new proposed rule for the nation’s first-ever federal safety heat standard.  This rule will require employers to:

  1. Develop an injury and illness prevention plan to control heat hazards in workplaces affected by excessive heat;

  2. Protect new or returning workers unaccustomed to working in high heat conditions;

  3. Provide training to employees;

  4. Have procedures to respond if a worker is experiencing signs and symptoms of a heat-related illness; and

  5. Take immediate action to help a worker experiencing signs and symptoms of a heat emergency.


AFOP praises the Department for prioritizing workers’ health at a time of rising heat risks.  Year after year, farmworkers have fallen ill and, tragically, lost their lives when working in excessive heat.  These protections will help prevent more farmworkers from suffering the same fate.

Georgia Sues Biden Administration Over Plan to Expand Farmworker Rights

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

July 2, 2024

Georgia has teamed up with a coalition of Republican-led states – and with a group of Georgia growers – to halt a new federal rule that would bring expanded protections to migrant farmworkers on temporary visas.


The new rule, currently set to go into effect this summer, reinforces that farmers are prohibited from holding or confiscating workers’ passports, and requires that vehicles used to transport workers be equipped with seat belts. It also allows workers to invite guests to their employer-provided housing – in the H-2A migrant farmworker program, employers are required to give their seasonal migrant workers, most of whom come from Latin America, free housing.


The legal challenge to the new federal rule focuses on a host of additional provisions that seek to expand H-2A farmworkers’ ability to organize for better working conditions.

Opportunity to Learn About Quality Pre-apprenticeship Programs and Practices

AFOP

July 3, 2024

On July 10, USDOL will hold a webinar providing an overview of quality pre-apprenticeship programs – including key characteristics of quality programs as well as some examples and best practices.  According to the Department, these programs are not regulated by its Office of Apprenticeship, however, “the Department recognizes the value and efficacy of the pre-apprenticeship model and therefor welcomes the opportunity to share guidance and recommendations in support and promotion of pre-apprenticeship programming and subsequent linkages to Registered Apprenticeship.”

Next Level Now Series: Trauma-Informed Care

USDOL

July 3, 2024

Join career coach supervisors from across the nation on July 25 to uncover resources and tools for clients’ career assessments and resume assistance.  This session is part of an exclusive “Train the Trainer” cohort, aiming to enhance the skills and expertise of workforce development supervisors who manage career coaches.  However, DOL is opening this webinar to the public, to encourage broader dissemination of promising practices within the realm of career coaching.


Presenter Joseph Seymore, owner of consulting firm Manifest Maximum, will delve into the principles and practices of trauma-informed care, emphasizing the importance of creating safe, supportive environments for individuals who have experienced trauma.  

Farmworkers in the News

Maria Catalan, founder of the organic Catalan Family Farms looks on from the production shed in Hollister, Calif., on Tuesday, June 19, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

‘Grapes of Wrath’ Legacy Fades: California’s Migrant Farmworkers Settle in, Run Their Own Farms

The Mercury News

June 26, 2024

For more than a century, California agriculture has depended on transient labor, with migrants moving from the winter lettuce fields of the south to the autumnal walnut orchards of the north.


But that long and dusty tradition, immortalized in John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” and the photos of Dorothea Lange, is fading. New research reveals a profound change in the nature of the nation’s agricultural workforce.


Since the late 1990s, the share of agricultural workers who migrate within the United States to follow the seasonal shift of crops has fallen by nearly 75%, according to an analysis of the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey data by the Bay Area News Group.


This trend is also reflected in a 2023 study by professor Philip Martin of the UC-Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. There is less seasonality in agricultural work, he found. While crops still require the most labor during the summer months, employment is rising during the winter and spring.

As Bird Flu Spreads on Dairy Farms, an ‘Abysmal’ Few Workers are Tested

Stateline

July 2, 2024

Public health officials are concerned about bird flu, which so far has been detected in three dairy farmworkers — two in Michigan and one in Texas — as well as in cattle in a dozen states.


The farmworkers’ symptoms were mild, and researchers have not found that the H5N1 virus, also known as bird flu, can spread from person to person. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is little risk to the general public. However, flu viruses evolve, and H5N1 could mutate and gain the ability to infect people more easily.


“The reason public health authorities are and should be on high alert is because this is a potential high-consequence pathogen,” said Meghan Davis, an epidemiologist and microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University.


Advocates worry that the government is prioritizing farmers’ losses, rather than farmworkers’ health, in its response.  While the risk to the public is low, the population of farmworkers shouldn’t be forgotten.


Bethany Alcauter of the National Center for Farmworker Health described bird flu threat as “kind of a ticking time bomb.”


“Maybe it hasn’t fully gone off yet. But if we don’t manage it well, it could,” Alcauter said.

Arcadia Labor Contractor Cited After Farmworker Suffers Fatal Illness While Harvesting Oranges with Heat Index Over 90

USDOL

July 3, 2024

A federal workplace safety investigation found a Florida labor contractor could have prevented the fatal illness of a 41-year-old worker who collapsed while harvesting oranges at Alico Farms in December 2023 by taking required steps to protect employees from hazards associated with high temperatures.


Inspectors with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration learned the worker employed by Guerero Ag LLC had difficulty talking and appeared disoriented before becoming unresponsive and collapsing — symptoms consistent with a person suffering from heat stroke. Sadly, the worker died three days later in intensive care. OSHA determined the heat index reached approximately 92 degrees the day of the incident.

What We’re Reading

Gen Z Plumbers and Construction Workers Are Making #BlueCollar Cool

Wall Street Journal

June 13, 2024

On social media, younger Americans have begun showing their lives working in blue-collar fields like construction and the trades. On TikTok, the hashtag “bluecollar” has amassed more than half a million posts this year, trending quicker than it did the year before.


Among the posts and accounts growing in popularity are those that show what a day in the life of someone working in construction, electrical, plumbing, or any other manual labor or trade job is like.


Some who have started to grow their accounts spoke with the Wall Street Journal about their experience, including 27-year-old electrician Lexis Czumak-Abreu, who has more than 2.2 million followers across her social media accounts.


“You feel just like a normal person until you actually get confronted by people, and you’re like, oh, my goodness, this is real. People know who I am,” Czumak-Abreu said.


The clips Czumak-Abreu posts show her on roofs installing utility outlets or doing wiring inside homes. Now, she rakes in over $200,000 a year from social media alone, on top of her electrician salary.

Shiny Monolith Removed from Mountains Outside Las Vegas. How It Got There Still Is a Mystery.

Is it Elvis Welcoming AFOP?

AP News

June 24, 2024

Strange goings-on in Vegas ahead of AFOP’s national conference.  An odd monolith found jutting out of the rocks in a remote mountain range near Las Vegas has been taken down by authorities.


How it got there is still unsolved.


“It remains unknown how the item got to its location or who might be responsible,” Las Vegas police said Friday in a series of posts on X announcing the removal of the glimmering, 6-foot-4 prism.


Members of the Las Vegas police search and rescue team found the object near Gass Peak, part of the vast Desert National Wildlife Refuge where bighorn sheep and desert tortoises can be found roaming.