Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Washington Apples
As reported at Crosscut, Washington's 2020 apple harvest comes at the cost of farmworker lives.
The failure of Washington State Department of Health and Department of Labor and Industries to protect them from COVID makes recruiting workers in Mexico and Guatemala harder. Working for minimum wage just isn't worth risking their lives.
We call this program a quasi slave labor program.
--Rosalinda Guillen, Washington State Advisory Committee on Agriculture
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Situation Report
Washington Department of Health says while COVID-19 case counts statewide are decreasing overall, risk remains extremely high, and outbreaks can quickly wipe out progress made by wearing masks and following social distancing protocols. Some of those outbreaks among unprotected farm workers in the Yakima and Columbia river valleys overwhelmed hospitals earlier this summer.
Monday, September 07, 2020
Child Care Crisis
Washington Department of Commerce says half a million children statewide are without child care. According to a press release by Child Care Aware of Washington, nearly half of the licensed child care providers are at risk of closing permanently due to the financial effects of the pandemic.
While the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says child care should cost 7% of the median family income, many working families are paying 25-50% of their paychecks. Washington Department of Commerce director Lisa Brown says,
Clearly, a dramatic investment in child care is needed for robust, equitable economic recovery in Washington state.
