FORT LAUDERDALE - Making the trip from Mexico to South Florida, a 26-year-old man arrived in September 2023, ready to start a new job on a sugar cane farm in Belle Glade. Four days later, he suffered fatal heat-related injuries while working in an open field as the heat index reached 97 degrees.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that McNeill Labor Management Inc. of Belle Glade, the farm labor contractor who hired the young man under the federal H-2A program for temporary or seasonal nonimmigrant workers, could have prevented his death by implementing safety rules to protect workers from heat-related hazards. These include using an effective plan to help workers acclimate to the weather conditions.
OSHA investigators learned the worker, sitting atop stacks of sugar cane on a trailer as he tossed them to the ground for planting, began experiencing symptoms consistent with heat-related illness and complaining of not feeling well. Shortly after, he collapsed.
The field in which he worked is about an hour west of West Palm Beach, 20 minutes from the closest road, and 22 miles from the hospital to which he was transported and where he later died, stricken by heatstroke.
“This young man’s life ended on his first day on the job because his employer did not fulfill its duty to protect employees from heat exposure, a known and increasingly dangerous hazard,” explained OSHA Area Director Condell Eastmond in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “Had McNeill Labor Management made sure its workers were given time to acclimate to working in brutally high temperatures with required rest breaks, the worker might not have suffered a fatal injury.”
As average temperatures rise across the U.S., heat illness is a growing safety and health concern for workers indoors and outdoors. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that environmental heat exposure claimed the lives of 36 workers in 2021 and 56 in 2020.
After its investigation, OSHA cited McNeill Labor with one serious violation for exposing workers to hazards associated with high ambient heat while working in direct sunlight. Federal investigators also found that the employer did not report the worker’s hospitalization or eventual death, both of which the law requires to be reported. McNeill Labor Management faces $27,655 in proposed penalties, an amount set by federal statute.
The company is contesting the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
Based in Belle Glade, McNeill Labor Management provides contract laborers for nursery cleanups; harvesting, packing and stacking for corn and cabbage farms; and cane planting and cutting in sugar cane fields in agricultural markets throughout the U.S.
OSHA’s Heat Illness Prevention campaign educates employers and workers on the dangers of heat in the workplace and offers resources on how to recognize and reduce extreme heat hazards. OSHA, along with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, offers a heat safety tool for Android and iPhones. This tool allows users to calculate the heat index on their work site and determine the risk level to outdoor workers, enabling them to take protective measures to avoid heat-related injuries.
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Jeannie Economos of the Farmworker Association of Florida tied this directly to the recent law (HB433) set by the Florida Legislature in an OP/ED sent to The Apopka Voice:
"Our Florida state lawmakers recently assured us that Florida employers provide safe workplaces for their outdoor laborers. How, then, do they explain the untimely death of a 26-year-old man from Mexico working on a sugar cane plantation in South Florida in September 2023?
A press release issued by OSHA on April 15th states that the young worker “suffered fatal heat-related injuries while working in an open field as the heat index reached 97 degrees.” The OSHA notice goes on to say that the employer “could have prevented his death by implementing safety rules to protect workers from heat-related hazards. These include using an effective plan to help workers acclimate to the weather conditions.”
Yet, just last week Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law HB 433, or the heat and wage preemption bill, that denies local governments in Florida the right to enact heat stress and heat exposure safety measures, including possible life-saving training, for outdoor workers in their communities.
At the behest of large agribusiness and construction industry associations, Florida lawmakers chose to vote in favor of a bill to prohibit heat protections for workers rather than for a bill to protect those outdoor workers through basic safety measures, such as water, shade, breaks and training. These are exactly the points that over 90 organizations told DeSantis in two separate letters they sent to the Governor, encouraging him to veto the anti-worker bill HB 433. In spite of this overwhelming support by many labor, faith and environmental organizations in the state, the Governor put his signature on the bill for it to become law.
A man is dead. All he wanted was to do honest work to make a living. Instead, he lost his life. And a family has lost a son. This did not have to happen. There are proven precautions that can protect workers from the increasingly high temperatures and Florida’s high humidity.
The argument of the business lobby against heat stress protections is that businesses are already taking care of their workers. This tragic death proves otherwise. Without basic safety protections, outdoor workers are not safe from extreme heat. In the case of the young man who died tossing sugar cane for planting in the ground, the OSHA press release states, “The field in which he worked is about an hour west of West Palm Beach, 20 minutes from the closest road and 22 miles from the hospital to which he was transported and where he later died, stricken by heatstroke.”
This should not have happened. It must never happen again! Those who do the work we all benefit from must not put their lives at risk to make a day’s pay!
Enough! Basta ya!"
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