IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Tyson Foods suspended top officials at its largest pork plant on Thursday and launched an investigation into allegations that they bet on how many workers would get infected during a widespread coronavirus outbreak.
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RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — Three Mid-Columbia farms are among those receiving the biggest fines in the state from the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries for serious violations of agriculture regulations to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
CALDWELL — Family Medicine Health Center received a grant from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to purchase 5,000 cloth face masks for Treasure Valley farmworkers.
WASHINGTON — Some dramatic moves on immigration are expected in the early days of the Biden administration. Joe Biden will likely use executive orders to reverse some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial actions, rolling back moves that were a central feature of his administration …
SEATTLE — A divided Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday the state’s dairy workers are entitled to overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week, a decision expected to apply to the rest of the agriculture industry.
BOISE — Thousands of Idaho agricultural workers, many who are considered “high-risk”, are in desperate need of face masks to help protect themselves and their families from contracting, or spreading, COVID-19 out in the community.
IDAHO FALLS — For half a century, Joyce Thiel has made every day of potato harvest like a holiday for her workers.
BOISE — The percentage of women in farm labor is increasing, according to data from the USDA. In 2010, women made up 19% of farmworkers in the U.S. and in 2018 they made up 25% of the farm labor force.
BURLINGTON, Wash. — Work is wrapping up on a seasonal farm worker housing development east of Burlington, a project nine years in the making.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — A Washington judge Friday upheld coronavirus-related housing rules for farmworkers, rejecting claims by a union that the state bowed to the agricultural industry and adopted unsafe standards.
BOISE — The Idaho Organization of Resource Councils has joined several other worker advocacy organizations in a civil rights complaint, claiming meat processing companies Tyson Foods and JBS USA engaged in racial discrimination through their workplace policies around the COVID-19 pandemic.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Cirio Hernandez Hernandez was thinning apple trees on a June morning in Yakima, grabbing a fistful of tiny apples and knocking off all but one that was left to grow to a marketable size.
TWIN FALLS — A Lamb Weston employee died in an industrial accident at the company’s Twin Falls facility Wednesday morning.
MOUNT VERNON, Washington — Since the pandemic began, local organizations have stepped up their work with farmworkers in Skagit County through educational outreach on COVID-19 with the goal to overcome language and cultural barriers.
CALDWELL — A group of Idaho farmworker advocate organizations are raising money to help support agriculture workers and immigrants who have been impacted by COVID-19.
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OWYHEE COUNTY — Mandi Boren, owner of Arrow B Ranches in Owyhee County, said in the last six years of hiring ranch workers, she has only had one U.S. citizen apply.
CONWAY, Washington — As the harvest seasons begins, farmers will have to comply with new safety requirements to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 among workers, but getting their hands on some of those supplies has been challenging.
MINNEAPOLIS — Federal recommendations meant to keep meatpacking workers safe as they return to plants that were shuttered by the coronavirus have little enforcement muscle behind them, fueling anxiety that working conditions could put employees’ lives at risk.
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Two dozen employees at a Vancouver, Washington, food processing company have been sickened with the coronavirus, officials said.
SPOKANE, Wash. — The state of Washington is implementing safety recommendations to battle a large outbreak of the coronavirus in an agricultural county in the central part of the state, officials said Tuesday.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Employees at a Smithfield pork processing plant in South Dakota where a coronavirus outbreak infected over 800 people were greeted at work Wednesday with thank you signs, cheers and waves from about a dozen area residents.
A Skagit Valley County, Washington, farm advocacy group has raised concerns that proposed state rules to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in temporary worker housing would negatively impact farmers’ ability to harvest their crops.
Dozens of farm workers at a Central Washington orchard have tested positive for COVID-19, though they weren’t experiencing symptoms, according to a Saturday newspaper report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced what he described as a “temporary suspension of immigration into the United States.” But an executive order he is expected to sign Wednesday to implement the change would bar only those seeking permanent residency, not temporary workers.
KUNA, Idaho (AP) — The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched an investigation into the accidental work death of an Idaho meat-rendering plant employee.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — With students completing school work remotely during the coronavirus pandemic, officials say more youths are filling their days by doing farm labor and other agricultural jobs.
NAMPA — Money from the federal CARES Act and unemployment insurance started arriving in many Americans’ bank accounts this week.
Idaho’s farmers and ranchers are trying to balance protecting their business interests against the health and welfare of their workers as planting and grazing season begins in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Salvador Calzadillas isn’t worried about catching the coronavirus when he’s picking mandarin oranges in the trees in central California. But he said the mere act of getting to the groves each day puts him and his wife, also a farmworker, at risk, and there’s nothing they…
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Farmers and orchard owners nationwide are breathing a little easier this week as more H-2A workers will be able to cross the Mexican border.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is threatening to worsen labor shortages experienced by Pacific Northwest farms and food processors.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration is considering a plan to turn back all people who cross the border illegally from Mexico, two administration officials said Tuesday, using powers they say the president has during pandemics like the coronavirus outbreak to mount what would be one of …
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is threatening to worsen labor shortages experienced by Pacific Northwest farms and food processors.
Potato industry leaders from throughout the country led a rally outside of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon, urging the Senate to take action on a comprehensive farm labor reform bill.
NAMPA — With a state unemployment rate under 3%, more Idaho farmers are utilizing the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program.{/span}
TWIN FALLS — Idaho dairies rely almost exclusively on foreign-born labor since few domestic workers are willing to take jobs in agriculture. But dairy farmers aren’t eligible to hire through one of the few available legal avenues, and, to stay in business, they must rely on workers with ambi…
An Inkom state senator plans to introduce legislation soon that would allow undocumented aliens to earn driving privilege cards.
BOISE — U.S. Department of Labor investigators found two east Idaho agricultural employers failed to properly pay and house their workers under the H-2A temporary agriculture worker visa program.
BOISE — After nearly three decades as a water supply specialist with the United States Department of Agriculture, Ron Abramovic is making a cool career change to become Bogus Basin’s new snow reporter.
Eastern Idaho’s congressman hopes to introduce a bill in the coming weeks to make it easier for farmers to hire immigrant workers.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Years before Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta began organizing poor farmworkers in California, a woman named Maria Moreno sought to sign up impoverished farmworkers for a fledgling union. The Mexican American mother of 12 coordinated rallies, recruited members in isol…
POCATELLO — Idaho State University was recently awarded a five-year, $2.375 million federal grant to help local seasonal farm workers and their immediate family members earn a high school equivalency diploma.
TWIN FALLS — She was dressed in her best clothes and high heels. The strangers she paid to take her across the border said they would pass her off as a tourist. Instead, she had to brave the desert.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced Monday it is moving forward with one of its most aggressive steps yet to restrict legal immigration: Denying green cards to many migrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance.
Idaho agriculture has become a global enterprise interconnected with international markets and increasingly reliant on migrant farmworkers.
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Construction has begun on a seasonal farmworker housing development outside Burlington.
BOISE — Sen. Patti Anne Lodge’s latest bill to expand Idaho’s inmate ag labor programs won unanimous support in the Idaho Senate on Feb. 20.
BOISE — Sen. Patti Anne Lodge, R-Huston, is trying again with her legislation to expand inmate labor programs at Idaho agricultural operations.
TORRINGTON, Wyo. — Now that it’s official the Western Sugar will no longer be processing beet sugar in Torrington and 92 employees have been informed they will be permanently laid off come January, it’s time for Torrington to look to the future — and brace for the economic impact.
CALDWELL — The Community Council of Idaho’s newly formed immigration legal services program, Familias Unidas, recently received backing from the Idaho Dairymen’s Association with a financial award to assist with services for migrant families.
POCATELLO — The federal government has suggested a tweak to J.R. Simplot Co.’s planned Smoky Canyon Mine expansion, which regulators say would reduce selenium impacts while also enabling the company to use a less robust protective cap over backfilled pits.
LIVINGSTON, Mont. — Jose Luis Munoz Anco wears secondhand Wrangler jeans, which are too tight, so he leaves the button undone and the zipper about halfway and a belt keeps them up. He’s oblivious to his sacrifice for fashion.
IOWA CITY, Iowa — The Mexican man charged with abducting and killing an Iowa college student was known for years on the dairy farm where he worked by another name: John Budd.
DES MOINES, Iowa — The arrest of a Mexican farmworker in the death of an Iowa college student renewed calls to change immigration laws, but it also focused attention on the immigrant workers whose labor is essential to the state’s agricultural industry.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (USDA) — The USDA has released internal guidance on changes made to farm labor housing eligibility that will lead to housing provided to foreign guest workers.
