A team of graduate students at USC’s engineering school are turning an idea from a high school student into a reality – a mobile computer application that will alert California farmworkers when temperatures top 95 degrees F and allow them to report unsafe working conditions to state regulators, says Civil Eats. “The next big step will come this summer, when they launch a pilot project of CalorApp with farmworkers at two companies, Fabbri Farms in Bakersfield and the Grapery in Shafter.”
The name of the app is drawn from the Spanish word for heat, calor. A state law says that when temperatures reach 95 degrees, employers are required to give farmworkers a 10-minute rest period every two hours in a shaded area with access to cold water, says Civil Eats. “The law is straightforward but it’s not easy to enforce” in the vast area covered by farms and orchards. CalorApp will help farm laborers avoid heat stress, says Faith Florez, whose idea sparked the coding project for USC. Last year, one farmwork died of heat stroke and 63 were sickened by it.
Florez says it’s common for workers in many jobs to carry a smartphone or tablet that is loaded with software to make their jobs easier to perform. Farmworkers “deserve tech at their jobs too,” she said.
In a story this past summer, FERN investigated the issue of heat deaths among farmworkers.