Lucas Benitez, CIW: “It hurts to think about how their families have yet to learn about this, that their loved ones cannot come home to their country and hug their children, their spouses, their parents.”
At 6:30 in the morning of Tuesday, May 14, an oncoming pick-up truck veered out of its lane on a two-lane stretch of State Road 40 near the central Florida town of Ocala and sideswiped a bus full of farmworkers heading to the fields to harvest watermelons. The collision caused the bus to swerve off the narrow road and lose control, careening first into a tree before flipping and rolling to a stop in a nearby field. The driver of the pick-up truck survived the accident and was arrested, charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and eight counts of manslaughter.
Eight farmworkers were killed, and over 40 more were injured in this tragic accident.
Our hearts go out to the workers and their families in this devastating time. The watermelon industry is especially close to the heart of the Immokalee community, and of the CIW in particular. Many of the CIW staff and longtime members worked in the industry for decades, many have driven on State Road 40 and worked the fields around Ocala and Gainesville where the accident occurred for years. The news of the workers’ death hit close to home.
We mourn the loss of those killed:
Manuel Pérez Ríos, 46;
Evarado Ventura Hernández, 30;
Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24;
Alfredo Tovar Sánchez, 20;
Isaías Miranda Pascal, 21;
José Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27;
As well as two other farmworkers who have yet to be publicly identified.
According to the most recent federal data, vehicle collisions were among the leading cause of job-related deaths for farmworkers involved in harvesting.
That’s why, when we launched the Fair Food Program in the Florida tomato industry in 2010, we made sure that transportation safety provisions are strictly enforced, including empowering workers to complain if they feel the driver might be driving unsafely or had other reasons to fear that they were not adequately protected. While those provisions may not have prevented last week’s accident, they are saving lives on Fair Food Program farms.
By contrast, the watermelon industry remains outside of the Fair Food Program’s protections.
In addition to last week’s horrific accident involving watermelon harvesters, a case of modern-day slaveryemerged involving watermelon workers just two years ago. Hundreds of workers and their consumer allies marched 50 miles from Pahokee, where the workers in that case were housed, to Palm Beach last year to demand an end to forced labor and other abuses in the agricultural industry.
Accidents like these remind us that it is time for retailers who buy melons to demand that their suppliers bring their operations into the 21st century of basic safety compliance, and to ensure farmworkers’ safety in the fields and while being transported.
Below you can find an excerpt from news coverage of the crash. Please join us not only in mourning, but in the broader call to empower farmworkers through the expansion of the Fair Food Program so that they can live and work safely and with dignity.
