{"id":268246,"date":"2026-04-15T01:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268246\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T01:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:17:16","slug":"commitee-passes-bill-giving-farmworkers-menstrual-products-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268246\/","title":{"rendered":"Commitee passes bill giving farmworkers menstrual products | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Center Square) \u2014 Women who work in fields and farms will have access to free menstrual products if the California Legislature passes a new law.<\/p>\n

That bill got closer to becoming law on Tuesday afternoon after it was unanimously passed during a hearing by the Assembly Health Committee, a crucial step to eventually being implemented. It\u00a0now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n

Assembly Bill 2082<\/a>, or the Rural Farmworkers Health Act, authored by Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez, R-Indio, was previously announced in a press conference held in the Capitol<\/a>\u00a0on March 24.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross California, more than 100,000 women work in our agricultural sector, many of them in rural regions like the Inland Empire and the Central Valley,\u201d Gonzalez testified at the bill hearing in Sacramento. \u201cThese women are essential to planting, harvesting and processing the food that sustains California and communities across the country. Yet despite the critical role they play, many of these women face barriers to something as basic as women\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n

No woman should have to choose between her health and her livelihood, Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile today California has broad strategies addressing women\u2019s health, there is no dedicated statewide program specifically focused on feminine hygiene product access in rural farmworker communities,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cThe gap is what AB 2082 seeks to close.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill proposes a $2 million allocation, which would be provided to organizations that already have a presence in heavily agricultural communities, Gonzalez told The Center Square after the hearing.<\/p>\n

According to a study published in the American Journal of Community Psychology<\/a>, women working on farms reported challenges related to proper hygiene and sanitation, especially as it relates to menstruation. That study also showed that women\u2019s number of visits to the bathrooms were limited, that they had to use sign-in sheets to be able to go to the bathroom, and that hours would pass before they could change their menstrual pads.<\/p>\n

Supervisors in these workplaces were even reported to have yelled at women who used the bathroom to change their tampons, the study reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir voice was heard, and I told them I\u2019d fight for them,\u201d Gonzalez told The Center Square after the committee passed the bill passed. \u201cThis is not a partisan issue. This is a dignity issue, and we have to be dignified when we do these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

One advocate of the bill told committee members that the bill gives the same protections to women in agricultural jobs that other women already benefit from.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese women sustain our food system, but one in four cannot afford basic menstrual products,\u201d Angela Cardenas, an organizer with Inland Congregations United for Change, testified during the bill hearing. \u201cWhile other women in California benefit from laws ensuring access to menstrual products, farmworker women are often left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill would require the California Department of Public Health to work with nonprofits that assist immigrant communities to provide those products in the fields and other environments in which farmworker women work, according to the bill. Eight people at Tuesday’s hearing voiced their support for the bill, and no one expressed opposition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2014 Women who work in fields and farms will have access to free menstrual products…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1955,7,9,8,1280,2215],"class_list":{"0":"post-268246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-women"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}