Governor’s Office Not Happy With WAFLA Op-Ed

Recently, Dan Fazio Executive Director of the Washington Farm Labor Association, better known as WAFLA, wrote an Op-Ed piece that ran in the Seattle Times stating that roughly 95% of foreign farmworkers were vaccinated this year and that no one had died from COVID-19. That op-ed didn’t sit well with Governor Jay Inslee’s office which then chastised Medical Teams International for releasing any data.

“So, we got the negative letter from the Governor’s office and we said, what’s going on? We have a contract with Medical Teams International where they are not permitted to provide data," Fazio said. "They have to give the data to us at the Department of Health and then we can decide what to do with it. And I said, you know, that’s the one thing about this whole situation that is very concerning to me, that the government gets the data and decides whether or not they want to release it.”

Fazio said he and the WAFLA team were just trying to celebrate their successes. Bottom line he added.

“And then, we get to the thing where they apparently don’t like the fact that the H-2A program is beneficial to workers. And, it’s a well-regulated program where we can help the workers, and so, because they don’t like that, they’re not going to let that data out.”

Read the entire article on the Seattle Times' Website.

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