Nursery owned by Central Valley congressman has history of safety violations

LOS ANGELES — California regulators have cited the Central Valley nursery owned by Republican Rep. John Duarte and his family for several safety violations during the years that the incumbent congressman was in charge of the business, records show.

Founded by Duarte, his parents and his brother in 1989, Duarte Nursery is now the country's largest permanent crop nursery. Duarte was the president of the family-owned company in Stanislaus County from 2008 until 2022, when he won a seat in Congress.

Workplace safety regulators cited the nursery eight times for safety violations and issued $22,220‬ in fines during the years that Duarte was the president, including in one case that involved the death of an employee, records show.

Duarte Nursery employs hundreds of people in year-round and seasonal work, including in the vast greenhouses and on-site research lab at their headquarters in Hughson. The nursery is famous for its grapevines and root stock of almond, walnut and pistachio, which are sold to farmers, commercial growers and retail nurseries.

The race in the heavily agricultural 13th Congressional District is a bitter rematch of 2022, when Duarte beat Democrat Adam Gray by 564 votes, the second-closest margin in the nation. The race is among the handful of contests nationwide that are seen as pivotal in determining which party controls Congress after the Nov. 5 election.

While agricultural work can be dangerous, the nursery has seen an injury rate over the last decade that is below the industry average and low compared with other companies, said Duane Dichiara, a consultant for Duarte's campaign.

"We are proud of our safety record," Dichiara said.

Duarte rose to prominence during his years-long legal battle over the plowing of a Tehama County field that federal officials said was protected wetlands. The case, which Duarte eventually settled for $1.1 million, made him into a national symbol in the conservative fight against government overreach.

In 2010, when Duarte was the nursery's president, he told the Modesto Bee that one of the biggest hurdles facing Central Valley farmers was too much regulation from state and federal agencies.

"I don't want an air quality regulator, a water regulator, an OSHA regulator," Duarte said. "We don't need different bureaucracies throughout the state with their own fleets of Ford Tauruses and inspectors."

Farming is one of the country's most dangerous industries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite the sheer number of injuries, experts say, those figures are still probably an undercount. The leading cause of fatalities for farmworkers is transportation accidents, and the leading causes of nonfatal injuries are equipment, falling and tripping, and overexertion.

At Duarte Nursery, workplace safety regulators issued violations connected to two accidents and three inspections between 2012 and 2021, records show.

On a warm June day in 2013, a man working as an irrigator began sweating heavily, complaining of chest pain and struggling to breathe, records show. The man was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The nursery was fined $5,000 after the worker's death. Opened 12 days after the fatality, the OSHA case said the nursery had violated a law requiring employers to promptly report deaths and serious injuries.

A few months later, a temporary worker hired by a staffing company collapsed and fainted while pouring a concrete foundation for a new greenhouse, according to OSHA records.

After a co-worker performed CPR, the report said, the employee was admitted to the intensive care unit at a hospital in Turlock. State workplace safety officials didn't cite the nursery for any violations or issue any fines.

And in 2019, nine workers were sickened while removing unwanted shoots from grapevines inside a greenhouse, according to an OSHA report. The employees were treated for heat-related illness, the report said, but when their symptoms didn't improve, they were treated at a hospital for carbon monoxide exposure.

An OSHA inspector found that the nursery had committed a serious safety violation, and cited a law requiring employers to monitor the level of airborne contaminants, records show. The nursery was later fined $3,375.

The California legislature this year passed a bill that would have made it easier for farmworkers to receive workers' compensation when claiming a heat-related illness on the job. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill in September, saying CalOSHA, and not the workers' compensation system, should determine workplace safety rules.

The nursery has also been in a legal fight for nearly a decade with a group of former employees who alleged in Stanislaus County court that the nursery paid them less than what they were owed.

The complaint said the nursery "routinely" required employees to work five hours or more without a 30-minute uninterrupted meal break, but that the full lunch break was deducted from their paychecks. The lawsuit also alleged that the nursery did not provide paid 10-minute rest periods for every four hours worked.

The plaintiffs argued that Duarte was one of the company's key decision-makers.

Duarte told the court that everything that happened at the nursery was his responsibility. But, he said, he didn't handle the day-to-day management of laborers, including hiring, setting their schedules or overseeing breaks.

Duarte was dismissed from the lawsuit four years ago. Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Stacy P. Speiller wrote that the plaintiffs had not proved that Duarte was involved in "granular decisions regarding when breaks begin and when they end." Duarte's dismissal was upheld by California's 5th District Court of Appeal in 2022.

Workers at Duarte Nursery also filed nearly four dozen claims for workers' compensation during the years that Duarte was president, encompassing about 150 reported injuries. Most complained of injuries to their backs, hands, shoulders, necks and knees, consistent with the repetitive agricultural work of bending, carrying and lifting.

Others told more gruesome stories, including one worker who developed an infection and required two surgeries after his hand was impaled by a thorn, and another worker who was struck from behind by a golf cart as she walked to the bathroom, resulting in permanent back pain.

In Congress, Duarte has sought to find a middle ground on immigration policy that takes into account the Central Valley's constant need for migrant labor for the billion-dollar agricultural industry. Like many farms in the Central Valley, Duarte Nursery relies heavily on immigrant labor.

Duarte has avoided echoing President Trump's message on immigration, which has focused on mass deportations of migrants in the country illegally. Last year, he was one of two Republicans to vote against the GOP border bill that would have required the Department of Homeland Security to resume construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Duarte said at the time that he opposed the bill because it would have mandated that employers use the federal government's E-Verify system to confirm that their employees have legal work status.

That requirement would impose "extensive, expensive and intrusive paperwork," and would "burden our working families and small businesses with huge costs," Duarte wrote in a Modesto Bee op-ed. "I understand that my vote will not be popular among some of my fellow Republicans."

Duarte was also one of 37 co-sponsors on the Dignity Act, which was not called for a vote in the House. The bill would have created a pathway to permanent residency for immigrants known as Dreamers, who came to the U.S. illegally as children, as well as for agricultural workers without legal status.

In Fresno County in August, Duarte said he was working on legislation that would provide amnesty — and, eventually, access to green cards — for undocumented immigrants with no criminal history who have been in the country working for five years or have an American spouse or children. But, he said, border security has to come first.