Boeschen Vineyards in Napa Valley becomes 1st to provide vineyard workers hazard pay and disaster insurance
When vineyard crews showed up for this year’s harvest at Boeschen Vineyards, a small winery that operates largely out of a cave dug into a pretty hillside off Silverado Trail just north of St. Helena, they were asked to listen to a three-minute presentation.
Doug Boeschen, the business’ owner, informed these seasonal agricultural workers, among the most economically vulnerable in the North Bay, that the winery was now offering them a combination of hazard pay and disaster insurance.
“When we talked to them, they are speechless,” said Alejandro Baltazar, Boeschen Vineyards’ longtime estate manager. “They say they never hear something like that. That day they are speechless, but the second day, they say, ‘It’s amazing.’”
There was no natural disaster to trigger those payments this month, fortunately, and Boeschen wrapped up its harvest Wednesday.
In fact, harvest hasn’t been disrupted by a major wildfire around here since 2020. But in a warming age, everyone knows the flames and toxic air will come again.
When they do, Boeschen Vineyards will provide an option to its workers — including the seasonal labor that pours into the region’s renowned vineyards for just a few days or weeks at a time. If the Air Quality Index climbs above 150, Boeschen’s workers will be able to choose between receiving time-and-a-half to remain on the job, or to take paid time off.
Boeschen will also pay its laborers if they are forced to leave a worksite under an evacuation order.
“For many years, I have felt that Napa Valley does everything related to wine at a world-class level,” Doug Boeschen said. “We’re the best there is at everything related to wine – except sometimes for how we treat our people.”
The disaster guarantees are a rarity in the industry.
E&J Gallo, the largest winery in the U.S. by sales volume, provides similar benefits to its ag workers; those benefits were agreed upon in collective bargaining with the United Farm Workers union. Eco Terreno, which grows and bottles grapes in the Alexander Valley, has also committed to paying its workers a 150% rate when the AQI hits 150.
Boeschen Vineyards is believed to be the first Napa Valley winery to do it, according to the North Bay Jobs With Justice labor collective.
The idea crystallized for Boeschen, he said, during the Glass Fire.
His winery was halfway through its grape harvest when that fire blew up about three miles away on the night of Sept. 27, 2020. Boeschen’s workers had picked portions of four of the six grape varietals grown at the 11-acre estate.
A crew of three city of Napa firefighters wound up saving the winery and the 1890 house on the property that night, but it was touch and go. (Many trees on ridges overlooking the winery remain charred three years later.) Baltazar showed up at 5 a.m. the next morning, ready to oversee a 20-ton pick, and called Boeschen to say the air was so smoky, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.
Boeschen told him to get out. No one returned to the property for 4½ days.
“Everything that was in the tank already made fantastic wines,” Boeschen said. “And then everything that was not yet picked was not possible to turn into wine.”
As he calculated his loss, Boeschen quickly realized many others had it worse.
“There were lots of owners that suffered greatly in the fires,” he said. “I don’t want to diminish that. But generally speaking, it’s always going to be the workers who suffer the most.”
The situation is particularly fragile for undocumented workers, whose immigration status often prevents them from accessing state, local and federal disaster assistance funds. Without papers, residents are ineligible for unemployment benefits, and for Federal Emergency Management Agency rebuilding assistance if a natural disaster damages their personal property.
Boeschen can count his full-time employees on one hand, and he has always paid them when they were unable to work. He has gotten to know a lot of his seasonal workers well, too, and knew he could do the same for them. But he wanted something in writing.
“We consider it a contract, because my signature’s on it and a document exists,” Boeschen said. “But there’s no requirement on it from the workers’ side.”
North Bay Jobs With Justice has made the two-sided coin of hazard pay and disaster insurance a major point of emphasis the past several years. The group worked with Boeschen to craft his guidelines, and to get the word out.
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