California farmer locked in battle with union

SANGER, Calif. –  Six months ago, workers at one of the largest fruit farms in the U.S. went to the ballot box to decide if they would continue to be represented by the United Farm Workers, which won that right two decades ago but never forged a labor contract.
The ballots, still uncounted by state officials and locked in a safe, sit at the center of a dispute between the union launched by iconic farm labor leader Cesar Chavez and Gerawan Farming, Inc., which hires more than 5,000 workers annually to tend and harvest nectarines, peaches and plums.
Chavez has long since passed away, but the UFW's fight to get workers at Gerawan a union-negotiated contract goes on, moving from the farm's vast orchards in Central California to courtrooms amid accusations of broken labor laws and intimidation tactics.
In California, the nation's most productive agricultural region, unions over decades have won more than 750 elections to represent workers, said Philip Martin, a farm labor expert at the University of California, Davis.
But that never resulted in more than 350 negotiated contracts, so Martin said another 400 farms may find themselves in the same position as Gerawan.
In the South, such as North Carolina, a few farms and food processors have recently unionized, said David Zonderman, a labor historian at North Carolina State University, adding that the region still remains at the bottom of national rankings for organized labor.
"It can be Michigan, Main, North Carolina or Northern California," Zonderman said. "Organizing farm workers is very, very difficult."
Dan Gerawan, who runs the family business in Central California and claims it pays the highest wages in the industry, said the union and a runaway state labor board are in collusion, using what he considers to be an unconstitutional state law to take control of his business and rob his workers of their choice of whether to be represented.
Gerawan said the UFW turned its back on the workers for 20 years, until recently returning out of nowhere. "There's no longer peace in the fields," he said. "What was our sin that justifies this?"
UFW's National Vice President Armando Elenes said farm workers need protection today more than ever from abuses such as low wages, exposure to harmful pesticides and working in extreme heat.
He disputed union critics who say the UFW is reasserting its long-dormant right to represent workers merely to bolster its membership rolls and dues. "It has nothing to do with a money grab," he said. "It has to do with improving conditions for workers."
This feud dates back to 1992, when the UFW began to represent Gerawan's workers. The two sides met once, without agreeing to a contract.
After that, Elenes said UFW leaders realized they were up against a powerful, anti-union farm.
The union turned to Sacramento, Elenes said, and won passage in 2002 of a law that calls for mediation if two sides can't reach a contract. The UFW tested the law at three smaller farms in San Joaquin and Madera counties, gaining hundreds of new members before returning to Gerawan in 2012.
Gerawan said in the two decades that passed he heard nothing from the union.
"Not a letter, no phone call, no fax, no email, no contact at all," he said.
Elenes said there was no disappearing act, as Gerawan claims.
In a new round of negotiations last year, the sides met repeatedly without agreeing on a contract, and the UFW invoked its right to a mediator. Gerawan appealed, saying having a mediator order a contract has "dubious constitutional validity" and would unfairly force the union on him and his workers.
UFW's Elenes said he would rather obtain a voluntary agreement and not have to use the mediation law.
Silvia Lopez, who has picked peaches for 15 years at Gerawan, said she is happy with the pay and working conditions. "If they don't treat me good, I don't stay there even one day," the 38-year-old said.
Lopez said she doesn't want the UFW taking 3 percent of her paycheck in dues. She led a signature drive to hold a vote on whether the workers want the UFW to represent them anymore. The vote happened Nov. 5, and she believes the ballots -- if counted -- would drive out the UFW.
Silas Shawver, director of the state Agriculture Labor Relations Board's office in Visalia, said the ballots remain untouched because of unsettled allegations made by the UFW that Gerawan's crew bosses coerced workers into signing the petition calling for the vote, compromising the process.
Shawver denied that the agriculture board is on the UFW's side, saying his office is independent and bound by law to investigate potential violations of worker rights. Gerawan said his crew bosses have not intimidated workers, and he wants the votes counted.
Gerawan worker and union supporter Severiano Salas, 34, said in Spanish with the UFW's Elenes translating that working conditions have improved since the union returned. Salas, who has worked at the farm for 15 years, said he is ready to pay 3 percent for full union representation.
"What would I tell my kids if I didn't do this?" he said. "If I didn't defend myself, how am I going to face them?"

Utah residents become next to confront Bureau of Land Management, in growing debate

A band of Utah residents rode all-terrain vehicles onto federally managed public land Saturday to protest the Bureau of Land Management closing off the area.
The protest comes weeks after Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s successful standoff against the agency over grazing rights and appears to be the latest episode in the battle across the West over states’ rights on federally managed public lands.
In Blanding, Utah, in the state’s scenic southeastern, the protesters and their supporters say the agency has unfairly closed off a prized area, cheating them of outdoor recreation, according to The Los Angeles Times.
However, federal officials say the region, known for its archaeological ruins, has been jeopardized from overuse.
Bureau of Land Management Utah State Director Juan Palma, in a statement, said the riders may have damaged artifacts and dwellings that "tell the story of the first farmers in the Four Corners region" of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.
"The BLM was in Recapture Canyon today collecting evidence and will continue to investigate," Palma said. "The BLM will pursue all available redress through the legal system to hold the lawbreakers accountable."
Bureau of Land Management officers recorded and documented protesters who traveled into the closure area, he added.
San Juan County Sheriff Rick Eldredge said from 40 to 50 people, many of them waving American flags, drove about a mile down Recapture Canyon near Blanding and then turned around. Hundreds attended a rally at a nearby park before the protest
"It was peaceful, and there were no problems whatsoever," the sheriff told The Associated Press.
About 30 deputies and a handful of U.S. Bureau of Land Management law enforcement personnel watched as protesters drove past a closure sign and down the canyon located about 300 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.
The ride was organized by San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman to assert local control of the region, known as Recapture Canyon.
Recapture Canyon is home to dwellings, artifacts and burials left behind by Ancestral Puebloans as many as 2,000 years ago before they mysteriously vanished.
The canyon was closed to motor vehicles in 2007 after two men forged an illegal seven-mile trail. But hikers and those on horseback are still allowed there, according to the agency.
Governments in Western states are trying to get more control over vast tracts of federally owned land in large part because they say the land could be strategically developed to help boost local economies.
Supporters of the decades-old movement also say local governments are better suited to manage the land, considering in part the federal government is understaffed to manage the acreage.  
Lyman and his supporters want the BLM to act more quickly on a years-old request for a public right-of-way through the area.
The Blanding protest being spearheaded by a local public official, not a resident, also appears to be a sign of the growing frustrations in a rural county composed of nearly 90 percent public lands managed by the BLM.
Environmental groups have spoken out in support of the BLM, saying that fragile Recapture Canyon must be protected.
Earlier this week, BLM officials notified Lyman that any illegal foray in the area would bring consequences such as citations and arrest. 
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert also urged people to uphold the law.
Earlier this week, two men wearing hooded sweatshirts brandished a handgun at a BLM worker driving an agency vehicle, holding up a sign that read, “You need to die.”
"You need to die." Utah ranchers and county leaders recently threatened to break federal law and round up wild horses this summer if the agency doesn't do it first.
Motorized access to Recapture Canyon and other areas in Utah's wilderness has been a source of tension for decades. ATV riders rode another off-limits trail in 2009 in a protest. The Bureau of Land Management gave information about the riders to federal prosecutors, but no charges were filed.

Obama Car

What causes the poor quality of medical care at the VA?

New Mexico VA Hires Surgeon Who Has Been Disciplined in 2 Other States For Operating on the Wrong Part of the Patient’s Spine!
Dr. Frank Allen Zimba has been practicing medicine for 31 years, is board certified in neurological surgery – and has a disciplinary history in two other states of operating on the wrong part of his patients’ spines.
The 57-year-old Texas native was hired at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque last August, even though disciplinary proceedings that resulted in a suspension of his Oklahoma medical license were pending.
The VA in Albuquerque isn’t saying whether Zimba has had any problems on the job so far – claiming it would be a personnel matter. But even if there have been, the state Medical Board has no jurisdiction to investigate.
That’s because under federal law Zimba is not required to be licensed in New Mexico, unlike most other physicians who work here. He only needs to be licensed in one state in the country, and he has licenses in Oklahoma, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
That left Zimba – who, through a VA spokeswoman, declined to be interviewed for this story – able to work at the Albuquerque VA Hospital during the six months his Oklahoma license was suspended.
Disciplinary records show Zimba was suspended for allegedly operating on the wrong part of a patient’s spine in February 2010. The suspension ended in March of this year.
Several years earlier, he was alleged to have performed surgery on the wrong side of two patients’ spines at a hospital in Jamestown, N.Y.
“They call it a never event,” said Oklahoma assistant attorney general Libby Scott, because it should never happen if hospitals follow procedures and properly mark the sites for surgery.
“But it could happen to good surgeons,” she added. Still, Scott said, three mistakes in a four-year period is troubling.
“Either this is the most unlucky guy in the world or there’s something wrong here,” Scott told the Journal last week.
In two of the three surgeries, Zimba also failed to tell the patients or their families afterward that he had made the errors, according to Zimba’s disciplinary records.
Zimba attributed the mistakes in New York to problems with the markings of the surgical sites. Either the markings weren’t there, or were incorrectly placed, he told the Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure & Supervision in a 2009 statement.
“No medical harm befell either patient,” he added.
Scott, who advises the board, recalled that after the more recent error in Oklahoma, Zimba blamed a blue dye that was used to mark the spot for surgery.
“Either the dye moved or didn’t go in right, so he was on the wrong side … and no one really stopped him,” she added.
The patient, who was in the U.S. military, is suing Zimba and Southwestern Medical Center in Lawton, Okla., where Zimba was employed. The patient is alleging that he suffered injury as the result of negligence during the surgery.
Scott said hospitals have instituted “time outs” before a surgery, so that “before you cut, the whole operating room stops, they have a checklist to go over … to make sure everyone is on the same page and doing the correct thing.”
“Most people, when a bad thing happens it makes them so paranoid that they double check and triple check.”
The overlap
Zimba went to work for the VA hospital in Albuquerque after his disciplinary process began but before any penalty was imposed by the state of Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma medical board filed a complaint last June accusing Zimba of unprofessional conduct and asked him to respond at a July hearing.
The hearing was postponed, and in late August 2011 Zimba started work as a staff physician in surgery service at the VA hospital in Albuquerque.
This January, he entered into a settlement agreement with the Oklahoma board, which suspended his medical license retroactively from September 2011 to March of this year.
“He told us he had this job in New Mexico, and we told him we wouldn’t settle on anything less than a six-months suspension,” Scott said.
Sonja Brown, a VA hospital spokeswoman in Albuquerque, said she wasn’t able to disclose why Zimba was hired despite his disciplinary history.
She also declined to say whether he had performed within the standard of care since his hiring or whether he had been disciplined or otherwise suspended for any length of time.
Those issues “are confidential personnel matters that I am not able to disclose,” she told the Journal in an email.
Matters of jurisdiction
The New Mexico Medical Board oversees the licensing for more than 7,500 physicians. But it doesn’t investigate complaints about physicians who aren’t licensed here.
“The patient would have to file a complaint with the state licensing board with whom he/she is licensed,” said spokeswoman J.J. Walker in an email.
Zimba’s medical license is still active in Oklahoma, but Scott said her board probably wouldn’t investigate a complaint made by a New Mexico patient.
“Because our duty is to protect the public and citizens of Oklahoma, so … if it’s not an Oklahoma patient, it’s really not in our jurisdiction.”
As to the lack of oversight by a state licensing board, “That’s a problem obviously,” Scott said. “We have a lot of Indian facilities in Oklahoma, and most of them nowadays are requiring an Oklahoma (medical) license for that very reason.”
Brown, the VA spokeswoman, said VA policies and federal regulations are designed to “protect BOTH the patient and the practitioner.”
Under the in-house system, the VA physician’s supervisor investigates patient complaints and reports the findings to the facility leadership if a complaint is substantiated.
Brown cited a federal regulation that requires the VA to report to state medical boards any physician whose clinical practice “so significantly failed to meet generally accepted standards of clinical practice … as to raise reasonable concern for the safety of patients.”
Some examples: errors in medication, substance abuse, patient neglect, and unethical behavior or abuse of a patient.
New Mexico medical board spokeswoman Walker said Friday that no one in her agency could recall ever receiving such a report from the VA.
The New Mexico board maintains a public website that lists basic information about its licensed physicians, including disciplinary actions taken.
Back to Oklahoma?
Zimba told the Oklahoma Medical board on his 2009 license application that he served in the U.S. Army from 1976 to 1994 and graduated from the University of Texas Medical School in Houston.
He also disclosed that he was sued for malpractice in 1997, a case that settled for $400,000.
Zimba’s disciplinary records also revealed that he had received a reprimand, probation, fines and one year of monitoring in 2008 related to the New York surgical errors.
His license in Oklahoma is up for renewal in September.
But if Zimba ever wants to return to work there, he must first appear before that state’s medical board, Scott said.
“We obviously were concerned … without some kind of re-education, would you want someone coming back like that? The board would have to decide … if they think he is competent or not.”

'GAMING THE SYSTEM': Email reveals VA push to manipulate wait time data

An email obtained by Fox News Friday revealed that an employee at a Wyoming VA hospital instructed his workers to manipulate records to make it seem like patients were being seen within the agency’s required 14-day window, which he described as “gaming the system.”  
Fox News has learned that the VA was informed of dubious scheduling practices at the Cheyenne VA Medical Center and at a community-based outpatient clinic in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is part of the Wyoming center, through an internal investigation in December 2013. The problems at and the investigation into the Fort Collins clinic were reported earlier this week.
However, the VA took no formal disciplinary action and did not order an independent probe into the matter until Friday, when Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said he learned of the email. 
Now Rep. Jeff Miller, the chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, is questioning why if the VA learned there were problems in December, the agency is only taking action now. He said Shinseki’s actions are “faux outrage at its finest.”
The June email signed by an employee named David Newman, a Telehealth coordinator at the Cheyenne center, describes to the workers methods they can use to manipulate records in the patient appointment system to comply with a VA policy that requires patients be seen within 14 days of their desired date of appointment.
"Yes, it is gaming the system a bit," the email reads. "But you have to know the rules of the game you are playing, and when we exceed the 14-day measure, the front office gets very upset."
Shinseki said in a statement that after he learned of the email on Friday, he ordered the employee who wrote it placed on administrative leave. He said he also ordered the VA’s independent inspector general to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.
“VA takes any allegations about patient care or employee misconduct very seriously.  If true, the behavior outlined in the email is unacceptable,” Shinseki said.
Miller said that the VA has known about falsified records at the Fort Collins clinic, which he notes is part of the Wyoming center, since last year.   
“And yet, until today, department officials had not taken any steps whatsoever to discipline any employees or request an independent investigation – nor did they plan to do so,” he said. “Today’s announcement from Sec. Shinseki that he has placed a Cheyenne VAMC employee on paid leave and asked the inspector general to investigate appears to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to tough media questions than anything else.”
In response to the problems in Colorado, Denver VA spokesman Daniel Warvi told the Associated Press earlier this week that employees have been retrained and weekly audits are being conducted. He said no one was disciplined because the investigation found no deliberate misconduct, calling it a “training issue.”
The falsification of records is only one of the scandals engulfing the VA. The American Legion and some in Congress have called for Shinseki's ouster following allegations of 40 patient deaths at the Phoenix VA hospital due to delays in care, and of a secret list the hospital kept of patients waiting for appointments to hide the delays.
The White House has voiced support for Shinseki and he has brushed off calls to resign.
On Thursday, the House Veterans Affairs Committee voted unanimously to subpoena all emails and other records in which Shinseki and other VA officials may have discussed destruction of what the committee called "an alternate or interim waitlist" for veterans seeking care in Phoenix.
The Associated Press contributed to this report