No evidence was found that GI, respiratory, or muscular problems of the head of the household affected the probability that the worker’s family would receive welfare payments are defined as the sum of the worker’s daily piece rate earnings and wages. Since five individuals in the larger sample reported implausible earnings, a sample of 362 individuals was used in the tobit regression reported in in table 4. Thirty~one of these individuals had zero earnings. This figure is lower than the percentage on unemployment compensation or welfare . The explanatory variables include demographic characteristics ; how long the worker had lived in Tulare County ; and the three health variables. None of the three health measures had a statistically significant effect. Indeed, only the age variables had statistically significant effects. Earnings rise with age until one reaches 35.6, then they fall with age. The effects, however, are small. A 45 year old worker only earns $1.31 less per day than one who is a decade younger and a 55 year old worker earns $5.58 less a 35 year old worker. Thus, in our sample, agricultural earnings do not vary much with respect to personal characteristics. Other studies of agricultural workers find substantial effects of union status and personal characteristics on earnings. The difference across studies is probably due to the relative homogeneity of our sample, which was restricted to field wcrkers in crop agriculture. Many census-based surveys also include dairy, livestock, and non~field worker employees. The narrowed focus of this survey explains the lack of impact of gender, education, or other factors on earnings. Further, in the surveyed county, unions have relatively little market power. A measure of job sanitation could be included in the earnings equation to capture a compensating earnings differential for more sanitary employment. Including a dummy variable for sanitary conditions has virtually no effect on the other coefficients.
The coefficient on the sanitation dummy is 0.0844 with an asymptotic t-statistic of 0.68. Thus, there is no evidence of a compensating differential. Five major policy-oriented conclusions can be drawn from this study. First,outdoor vertical plant stands in spite of California law mandating field toilets, over a quarter of all Tulare County workers, and half of workers younger than 20, did not have access to toilets. Second, as was expected, unsanitary work conditions, as reflected by the lack of field toilets, led to SUb-stantially higher rates of gastrointestinal disorders. However, the lack of sanitary conditions on the job is not a proxy for other dangerous conditions that cause respiratory or muscular problems. Third, living conditions also greatly affect health. Although the lack of a home toilet did not have a comparable effect. the lack of a home refrigerator more than tripled the probability of gastrointestinal problems. Fourth. only respiratory problems. of these three health variables, lead to higher unemployment compensation rates. None of the three health variables was statistically significantly related to either receiving welfare or lower daily earnings. Fifth, Mexican-born agricultural workers and their families were relatively unlikely to use the welfare system. However, these workers were relatively more likely than others to receive unemployment compensation. These results indicate that the probability of gastrointestinal disorders can be substantially reduced by improving living conditions and job site sanitation. While these disorders apparently are not severe enough to reduce earnings or increase demands upon the welfare system, they lower workers’ standard of living. Similarly, the standards at public camps should be examined more closely. Although such camps are subject to routine health inspections, whereas private camps are not, only public camps are associated with health problems in this sample. Indeed, inhabitants of public camps had over 4.25 times as high a probability of gastrointestinal disorders, 1.8 times as high a probability of respiratory problems, and 1.6 times as high a probability of muscualar problems as those who lived elsewhere. The net welfare effect of improving work place sanitation depends on the value workers’ place on such amenities, the costs to employers of providing sanitation, the negative effects of disease on labor productivity, and the societal cost of treatment of disease symptoms. Dunn has shown that the value workers put on field toilets is greater than the cost of providing them and.These results indicate that the productivity losses from the three diseases studied are relatively minor, as wages are little affected .
Thus, although Dunn’s study shows that workers value field toilets six times as much as the cost of providing them, this study failed to find additional benefits due to the improvement in societal output. Given the nature of the data set, we are unable tc obtain precise measures of the social cost of providing medical care . The cost to workers at local public clinics ranged from $12 up per visit. These costs exclude medicine, physician time, and the externality cost on local facilities . Consideration of these factors can only strengthen the case for providing more sanitation on the job. This study shows additional social benefits of reduced respiratory illness due to lesser demands on the unemployment compensation system, an issue largely ignored to date. Since many adverse living conditions contribute to all three types of disease, the public policy debate should also consider the costs and benefits of ameliorating living conditions, particularly for seasonal workers.Of the estimated 3 million farm workers in the United States, approximately 1 million are employed in California, where a well-documented labor crisis has been driven by diminishing numbers of male migrant workers.In 2017, Napa County vineyards, which employ 10,000 farm workers, experienced an estimated 12% shortage of vineyard laborers . This labor shortage could have been considerably worse if not for an influx of female workers into the Napa County labor pool. Between 2013 and 2016, the proportion of female seasonal laborers in Napa vineyards increased from 10% to 25%, mirrored by a smaller increase in permanent laborers . There are indications that similar gender shifts are occurring in other California regions. The economic motivation is, therefore, stronger than ever for agricultural companies to reduce barriers to the employment and retention of female workers. One such barrier is workplace sexual harassment .Studies in the United States estimate that from 40% to 75% of all working women have experienced SH and that rates have not decreased since the 1980s . Furthermore, SH rates are higher in male-dominated and lower-income jobs , categories that include agricultural labor . California is no exception; in one study, 80% of female farm laborers reported experiencing SH and, in a recent survey of farm workers in northern California, 44% of women reported SH . Defined as “unwanted sex-related behavior at work that is appraised by the recipient as offensive . . . or threatening her well-being” , SH of women is one of the most prominent and detrimental barriers to women’s career development and satisfaction . Sexual harassment covers a range of behaviors usually placed on a continuum of severity. One common typology assigns behaviors into three categories: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion . All of these behaviors have negative consequences for both the victims and the organizations in which they work . Victims report debilitating effects on their physical and mental well-being . In addition, they are less productive, less satisfied with and committed to their jobs and have higher absenteeism and turnover rates . SH may also act as a stress or for entire work teams, with negative impacts on intrateam interactions, cohesion and performance . All these consequences incur economic costs. To tackle SH, a company needs to understand the antecedents. For example, it is important for a company to know which workers are at highest risk and in what work scenarios SH is most likely to occur.
Organizational studies in other industries have identified multiple antecedent variables of SH over the last 30 years . It was our objective to test these in an agricultural context , with the aims of improving our understanding of which antecedent conditions are present in agricultural work environments, specifically viticulture, and to assess how they are related to reported incidence of SH and work outcomes, that is, job satisfaction and job retention. In doing so, our goal was to provide practical guidance for the local industry and, by extension, other agricultural industries, as well as to learn which approaches may be effective for addressing SH, a significant barrier to women excelling in the workforce. Our study focused on the organizational level of the work team because agricultural workers spend most of their time working in small groups . We quantified three categories of antecedent variables based on organizational models : personal and situational characteristics of female workers, job gender context and organizational climate . Our primary criterion for selecting each antecedent measure was the likelihood a company could influence that variable if it were linked to SH. These antecedents were compared with a measure of SH, which was then compared to work outcomes as a demonstration of how SH can negatively impact productivity . The personal and situational characteristics we measured were age, employment status, vertical plan rack duration of employment in the company, crew size and the presence of relatives on a crew. Previous studies have found that women with temporary employment contracts are more vulnerable to SH than those with permanent fixed contracts , and that younger women are consistently identified as at greater risk than older women .Job gender context refers to the “balance of genders in the work environment” . We adopted a common measure: the ratio of male to female members in a crew. Women have consistently been shown to be more vulnerable to SH in male-dominated teams and organizations than they are in gender balanced or female-dominated contexts . Organizational climate is the extent to which an organization tolerates SH and the effectiveness of any remedies put in place to combat it. A permissive social climate for SH behaviors, as well as failures to properly address complaints by recipients, facilitate SH . Awareness training programs are widespread across industries to educate employees on what constitutes SH and appropriate workplace behaviors . In California, these training programs are mandatory for supervisors in companies with at least 50 employees, but they are not mandatory for crew members. We took an indirect measure of organizational climate, measuring how many crew members had completed SH awareness training, to assess the impact of training on reported incidence of SH. We also measured hostile sexist attitudes associated with perpetration of, and tolerance for, SH . Hostile sexist attitudes were measured using questionnaire items from the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory that reflect aggressive attitudes to women and opinions that women are inferior . We measured incidence and severity of SH using the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire , which quantifies the three types of SH mentioned previously: gender harassment , unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion . We measured two work outcomes using questionnaires for turnover intentions , which is an established predictor of actual turnover , and job satisfaction, which is negatively linked to turnover . We collected data from male and female Hispanic vineyard workers from 21 distinct crews across nine companies operating in Napa County. The nine companies consisted of seven contract labor companies and two estate vineyard companies who employed their crews directly. Each participating company, except one estate vineyard, had more than 50 employees. Eighty five participants reported they were permanent employees, and 198 participants reported they were temporary seasonal employees. At the time of the survey , all workers were engaged in standard crop-production tasks , but not harvest. Questionnaires were presented to workers in groups during their work breaks. Study questions were displayed on a flip chart while a bilingual researcher read them aloud in Spanish. Crew members answered using electronic response pads , which allowed participants to respond anonymously. Each question also had a “do not wish to respond” option so that participants could opt out of responding to specific items. All questions except the SEQ were presented to all participants, both male and female, within their work crews. After they finished the questionnaires, the male employees returned to work, out of sight and hearing range, and the female workers were taken aside in small groups to conduct the SEQ. All female workers agreed to participate in the SEQ, but some participants chose not to answer all items.