Since we all here are connected to this topic in one manner or the other, I thought I would post this.

Last month my son-in-law was killed in an accident on the ranch where he worked. We learned he had no workman's comp. It is not required for farms/ranchs. When we asked about an OSHA investigation, we werer told they were not involved with farms/ranchs, that most of their regulations had an agriculture exemption clause.

The United Statistical Yearbook for 2010 shows that there are a total of 2,168,000 Americans employed in the agricultural sector in 2008. 20.4% of these agricultural workers are Hispanic while only 23.9% are female.

These workers are denied the simple safety regulations that a person working for Wal-Mart or McDonalds enjoys.

Agriculture is in the top 5 most dangerous jobs in the nation, and yet we give the operators of ag business exemptions to basic safety laws. Why?

Farms/ranchs should be held to the same safety requirements of any other business, plus employers should be required to pay into workman's comp.

Sadly, it took a personnal tragedy to awaken me to this problem. Because of legal loop-holes and exemptions, my daughter, with 3 small children is now left to fend for her family, alone and with little to show for the years she spent as a wife and mother on a ranch. She will receive a small stipend from his Social Security, but not nearly enough to raise 3 children.

This issue is always pushed aside because of the very strong agriculture lobby. When many of the exemptions were written into the laws, they were done so back when the avarage farmer or rancher was a small family business. Now they are huge corporations, and, like most corporations, are interested in profits, not the safety and well being of their workers.

This must stop. Workers in any industry must have basic safety coverage and some finicial compensation in the event such a tragedy. That is only fair.