#occupational-safety

#occupational-safety

When he first picked himself up off the ground after falling from a ladder on a job site six years ago, Mark Foster thought at worst he might be a bit sore for a few days. Though he'd smacked his head after tumbling from a height of four metres, the then 44-year-old from Ingersoll, Ont., initially saw no reason to believe he'd suffered an injury that would soon have life-changing consequences.

A newly published UC Berkeley study takes a highly critical view of Sonoma County's Ag Pass program, adding to previous analyses that suggest the system, which allows agricultural workers into disaster evacuation zones when approved by the Sheriff's Office, keeps local industry humming at the expense of worker health and safety. Among the findings of a survey of more than 1,000 Sonoma County farmworkers