Responding to an avalanche of public outrage—including thousands of e-mails from United Farm Workers’ supporters—one of the scandals over which Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned includes trying to reverse stronger protections for farm workers from toxic pesticides that most American workers enjoyed for decades. The UFW worked closely with the Obama administration in implementing the strengthened standards in 2015. Pruitt and the Trump administration have been attempting to reconsider the minimum age requirement that prohibits children from applying pesticides, the right of farm workers to designate representatives who can access pesticide-application information on their behalf and protections for farm workers and bystanders when pesticides drift from the fields where they are applied.
There are about 500,000 child farm workers across the nation and as many as 20,000 workers are diagnosed with pesticide poisoning each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The UFW and UFW Foundation believe many more cases go undiagnosed or unreported.
Underage farm workers should not apply and handle dangerous chemicals that can harm their developing brains and bodies. Now that Pruitt is gone, will Trump’s EPA continue attempting to weaken the pesticide protections? Trump replaced Pruitt with Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry.