By Allison Stormo

Tri-City Herald

A farm in central Washington has been hit with one of the largest workplace safety violation fines in state history over the investigation of two workers who died from COVID.

The Department of Labor and Industries fined Gebbers Farm Operations in Brewster more than $2 million after the state found dozens of safety violations while investigating the deaths of two farmworkers from COVID-19.

Brewster is about 30 miles north of Chelan.

“Gebbers made it very apparent to investigators they had no intention of following the rules as written regarding temporary agricultural working housing and transportation,” L&I Department director Joel Sacks said in a news release.

Anonymous callers from workers at the farm saying they were worried for their lives after a worker at the camp had died triggering the state investigation in July.

One caller said that not only were workers who shared a cabin with the dead worker not tested, but they were reassigned housing with other workers. Another claimed the sick worker had not been cared for and was left to die in the cabin.

The department found that a 37-year-old from Mexico died July 8 and the death had not been reported to the state as required. Another 37-year-old worker from Jamaica died July 31.

Both were confirmed to have died from complications from COVID-19.

Department spokesman Tim Church told the Tri-City Herald that the difference between Gebbers farm and other businesses in the state, such as Tyson Fresh Meats in Wallula, is whether outbreaks or deaths followed egregious willful violations.

Gebbers Farm knew what was required but did not do it, he said.

Church did not have immediate information about outbreaks at Tyson earlier this spring. Several Tyson workers from Tri-Cities have died of COVID complications.

Emergency rules during the pandemic by the state require temporary worker housing to be limited to groups of 15 people or less.

That group can be housed together using both top and bottom bunks, as well as work, eat, live and ride together to work. However, they cannot interact with others on the farms.

“This farm clearly understood the steps they were required to take to keep workers safe and prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” Sacks said in the news release.

Investigators found that hundreds of workers were using bunks, were not being told to remain in their groups, and that much larger groups than allowed were working and traveling together.

The $2 million fine is a total of multiple fines for multiple violations, including disregarding required housing and transportation rules for workers during the pandemic, as well as failing to report the deaths.

The fines included 12 violations for unsafe sleeping arrangements and another 12 for transportation. Each was assessed a penalty of $84,000 per day.

It was not the first investigation on the farm.

Labor and Industries also investigated the farm in May, which resulted in a $13,200 fine for not ensuring social distancing along with failure to segregate employees into cohort groups. The details of what the farm needed to do to be in compliance was laid out at that time.

Gebbers Farm has 15 days to appeal the violations and penalty.

Fines paid go into a workers’ compensation supplemental pension fund to help workers who have died on the job as well as their families.