No matter where you might fall in the current debate about health care reform in this country, if you’re reading this site, you probably don’t think that farmworkers should be excluded from whatever solution ultimately emerges from Washington.

One idea behind health reform is that all large employers will have to offer health insurance to their employees or pay into a fund to support affordable insurance.

So, this could be a good thing for the tens of thousands of impoverished farmworkers who put food on our tables, right? Not if Sen. Hagan of North Carolina has her way.

Sen. Hagan has introduced an amendment to the Senate health bill (the Affordable Health Choices Act) that would not count “temporary or seasonal agricultural workers . . . for the purposes of determining the size of an employer.” Of course, if you don’t count the people who actually pick the crops, huge corporate farms all of the sudden look like small employers who don’t have to offer insurance.

When the National Labor Relations Act was passed during the last Depression, farmworkers were sacrificed on the altar of labor rights, excluded from the protected right to organize in exchange for the votes of southern Democrats. To this day they lack the protections that virtually all other American workers enjoy. Now Sen. Hagan wants to sacrifice the health of the next generation of farmworkers.

If you think farmworkers, who work in the most dangerous industry in this country other than mining, ought to have the same access to health care as other people who work for large employers, you should call Sen. Hagan and let her know. Here’s how:

Call the Capitol Switchboard and ask for
Sen. Hagan’s office, 202-224-3121