Sunday, June 27, 2021

FARM SLAVE LABOR -- ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ?

Immigration is such a touchy topic -- all those illegals entering our country -- maligned by so many.  Do we benefit from low priced food because of the labors some provide?  

Some of them may make up the farm workers who harvest our fresh produce, vegetables and fruit.  Mostly they earn only starvation wages, have no health care, meager possessions, pathetic housing conditions.  Decades pass and these issues seem never to go away, ebbing and flowing from bad to worse and back again.

Living in the Midwest when I was young my awareness of the laborers harvesting our food out west was not in my consciousness.   I became accustomed to seeking ways to earn money that began in my early years as my mother incentivized me when I helped her with a sideline greeting card business.  This was long before greeting cards other than for the really big sellers at Christmas were readily available in stores.  

We took orders for the Christmas cards by the box, plain or name engraved.  The other cards we sold throughout the year when someone would phone saying they needed only one or the other card for some occasion from a box of "everyday cards" we kept on hand -- get well, birthday, anniversary, sympathy.  I delivered them on my bicycle and received a small amount of pay from my mother for my efforts.

We moved to the country the year I started Jr. High School.  One summer I learned of a farm down the highway from where we lived that was hiring workers to harvest potatoes on an upcoming Saturday.  I was enthusiastic about this opportunity to earn some extra spending money.  I was to be paid by the weight of the potatoes I gathered though I don't recall now the rate.  

We followed a tractor pulling a mechanical device unearthing the potatoes allowing us to pluck each one from the dirt  to add to the huge bag we drug behind us.  Our bag filled we took them to a wagon for weighing and emptying together with all the others.  

I remember how dirty, hot and sweaty the work was, exhausting me at the end of the picking day.  I hadn't set any records for the meager number of total potatoes I harvested so earned very little compared to the expectations I had when I took that job.  

I had, however, just added one more type of employment to the list I was formulating in my memory that I knew absolutely I did not want as a career when I became an adult.  By the same token, I had learned from my Mother's model I would be wise to be experienced in doing many jobs I might not find appealing in order to survive, to not be too proud to do so.

I think now of farm workers of varying ages harvesting crops day after day, all day long and appreciate the fruits of their labor with every bite I take.  I think of the meager wages for such exhausting work these people earn, limited if any benefits they have including health care, with only their basic living conditions at best.

A recent article by Nina Lakhani in "The Guardian"  shared photographs by Encarni Pindado from Texas' Rio Grande Valley:   "Meet the workers who put food on America's tables -- but can't afford groceries.  Undocumented immigrants are doing the backbreaking farm work that keeps the US food system running but struggle to feed their families."

Lakhani reports "About half of the 2.5m farm hands in the US are undocumented immigrants, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), though growers and labor contractors reckon the figure is closer to 75%."

One woman, Linda Villareal, (not her real name) written about:  "For this backbreaking work, Villareal is paid $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage since 2009, with no benefits " She has also had to cope with the debilitation of Covid 19 symptoms.

Villarreal works six days a week, sometimes seven, putting food on Americans' tables but earns barely enough to cover the bills and depends on food stamps to feed her own family.

Writer Lakhani reports, "Even before the pandemic, farms were among the most dangerous workplaces in the country, where low paid workers have little protection from long hours, repetitive strain injuries, exposures to pesticides, dangerous machinery, extreme heat and animal waste.  Food insecurity, poor housing, language barriers and discrimination also contribute to dire health outcome for farmworkers, according to research by John Hopkins Centre for a Livable Future."  Farmworkers are reported to have experienced "a disproportionate impact of Covid 19" during this pandemic.

"Many undocumented farmworkers have been toiling in the fields for years, pay taxes and have American children, yet enjoy few labor rights, have extremely limited access to occupational health services and live under the constant threat of deportation.

In truth, farmworkers here are never harassed while working in the fields, which advocates say suggests a tacit agreement with growers to ensure America's food supply chain isn't disrupted by immigration crackdowns.  It's everywhere else that these essential workers, who kept toiling throughout the pandemic, are not safe."

The NYTimes reports our US Supreme Court recently decided a California court case preventing unions from organizing at the farmworkers workplace since this infringed on employer's rights.  "The case concerned a unique state regulation allowing labor representatives to meet with farm workers at their workplaces for up to three hours a day for as many as 120 days a year."  The vote was 6 to 3, with the court's three liberal members dissenting.

"The decision did away with a major achievement of the farmworkers' movement led by Cesar Chavez in the 1970s, which had argued that allowing organizers to enter workplaces was the only practical way to give farmworkers, who can be nomadic and poorly educated, a realistic chance to consider joining a union."   I experienced my English as a Second Language (ESL) students having to leave as they followed the various crop harvests across California some years ago after only a few classes.  Is it any wonder they may have difficulty learning English?

Are those whose skills may be unappreciated and unrewarded going to be content to be taken advantage of forever?  

Will there be a day of reckoning for American's farm worker slave labor -- our food availability and how much we pay for that food?  I wonder what the situation is in Europe and the rest of the world?


 

20 comments:

  1. I totally agree with your hopes. Once in high school, like you, a friend and I thought we'd earn some extra money picking beans. Mercy was that brutal work. Heat, thirst, muscle aches and low pay made me appreciate those that do these jobs. Thank God for the illegals for with out them, no natural born American would do us the favor of making sure we eat. I would pay the extra if the growers decided to treat the workers humanely. And I would do it without griping.

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    1. Clearly you know from experience what such day in day out labor of that sort can be like.

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  2. This type of work may be hard for you, but for these migrants, it sure beats what they did back in their own country. They come here to work for good reason.

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    1. As a young girl whose previous farm work had been quite limited driving a horse to aid uncle putting hay in his mow for his dairy herd, driving a hand-clutch tractor one night while he and friend loaded bales of hay on a wagon, I was a softie compared to adults gathering those potatoes, though I was closer to the ground. What little working I had in our small family garden was minor by comparison. I expect for many farm workers seeking a better life than in their home country this labor can be the lessor of two evils as occurs in many cultures where they have few choices. I do think all too often the workers are exploited.

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  3. As far as I know, farm workers in the UK aren't treated any better than those in the US, except that they're covered by the NHS. But even then, they don't want to take time off work and lose money for medical reasons. I'm very aware that the food I eat has often been picked and processed by underpaid foreign nationals, but what influence do I have to improve things? None whatever. And now Brexit has drastically reduced the number of FNs coming into the UK and that means some crops are being left to rot because there's no one to pick them.

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    1. Sounds like the situation is difficult there, too, for farmworkers. Here in the US we can press our Congresspersons to act on legislation among other actions. May take years to make gains as in raising the minimum wage as cost of living goes up, but there are actions we can initiate or participate in with others.

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  4. It sounds like you had a mother similar to mine. I was born in 1933 during the "big depression" and although my dad retained his job in an advertising firm his pay was cut in half. I was the youngest of 5 girls so it was hard to have enough money to pay the bills and for food and my mother, although a talented artist who taught art at Skidmore college before marrying my dad did a myriad of things to earn extra money ... such as hemming and adjusting clothes. Nothing to compare with what the immigrants had to put up with but she trained all of my sisters and me to be very frugal and I remain so today ...

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    1. Yes, my mother was frugal but not to a fault and taught me the same. Then when my father abandoned us she was left to raise my ten year older brother and I, 5 years old then. Father provided nothing financially or emotionally to her or us kids — he never saw or talked to us. Mother was a teacher, had taught in a one room school house before wedding,(graduated Kent State Normal School only a 2 year program, then), but coincidentally medical issues prevented her working away from home after Dad left.She was an accomplished seamstress that people brought their clothes to for tailoring, ironed men’s white shirts businessmen wore then that most wives hated to iron, rented rooms in a house we rented eventually. My real estate uncle had to come from his town to vouch for her as no one would rent to a divorced woman with kids even if she’d had a salaried job. She even took in select laundry for a few people with not very soiled items — many wanted their sheets ironed, curtains stretched. As her vision began to go bad she eventually had to cease sewing as she had in years past but designed unique hooked rugs as she listened to talking books I got for her — eventually people wanted to buy them when a furniture store put one under a rocking chair in their store window. Exclusive gift store in Scottsdale, AZ sold them when my husband and I moved there, then an antique store did too where I live now. She was an amazing lady.

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  5. In India, Farm workers are in short supply and command premium wages and perks during peak seasons. Migrant labour from within the country is quite common and we also have illegal Rohingyas and Bangladeshis working in farms who face problems but, due to the overall shortage not as much as the ones that you talk about.

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    1. Sounds like your farm workers are a little more appreciated, valued and rewarded.

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  6. I learned early on from my father that all food was political. I remember a time when we didn't buy grapes because of a boycott.

    Migrant workers may be leaving harsher conditions at home, but they still deserve to be treated humanely and be paid a living wage. The cavalier attitude of "hey, at least they're not being killed or raped" is shameful.

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    1. Food is definitely political and is predicted by some to become an even greater issue as our climate changes adversely affecting many parts of the world, including US. Consumers may well see some of the repercussions.

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    2. Amen! And yeah, i get it ... if food/service workers were paid livable wages, food/prices would skyrocket. Guess that would mean we'd end us eating less. Oh yikes :0 that would be really bad news for the weight-loss industry (oh well, they lie like wet nasty rugs, anyway).

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  7. Chavez did not want illegal workers coming in as they undercut his farm union workers. If we had them all come in legally, they'd have rights. Whose fault is it that it's not the case? I'd say both parties for different reasons.

    I earned money for school clothes by picking crops. I do understand what it's like-- not to mention having had a livestock ranch (small) for well over 40 years where the owners (us) don't make much for their long hours (we hired no illegals ever). Now our son does it and we are helping or rather my husband is in the hot sun and getting in the winter's hay. Again, no illegals but most ranch work is not done by those who don't have the muscles, skills. They are in general locals. Most of the illegals, who harvest say Christmas trees, come in from the nearby towns.

    I suspect that the sad part of the ones who come up here illegally is their lives are even worse from where they have come. An answer to poverty and lack of power is beyond my pay grade by far. It's always been with us and this recent heat wave, for the area where I live, is a good example of how different it is for those with money versus those without-- immigrants or not.

    We are suffering with the heat because of living in an RV without adequate insulation and this all came so fast, but it does make me relate to how it is for the poor, since when in Tucson, I have a/c (didn't always)

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    1. I expect most of the illegals coming from other countries aren't the regular farm workers or intend to be such but i’m no expert on that topic. Can appreciate your circumstance without AC and can sure wish you weren't having to put up with the heat.

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  8. I should add that I have a friend, quite well off, and her concern on dealing with the border responsibly was our food would cost more. I had to bite my tongue.

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  9. One of my earliest memories (1955-1956, 5-6 years old) of television is of sitting alone in our living room watching a documentary about farm workers and their families. We lived just south of Delano, California, where Cesar Chavez with others started the farmworker's movement. As a small child I was moved by seeing how difficult the lives of the farmworkers were. At that time I wouldn't have known the words "slave labor," but that is what it was and continues to be. That vulnerable immigrants, politically and otherwise, work in the fields in all weather for next to nothing, unable to afford the food they harvest, is yet another example of the injustices that plague our troubled country. It doesn't have to be this way and farmworkers and allies are speaking out here in Washington State, along with farmworkers organized everywhere.

    http://www.foodjustice.org/

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    1. Yes, there are solutions, some possibly proposed by some legislators but no real effective action is taken. Unions are only one way to try to resolve such problems but forces thwart that option.

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    2. Some states, like Washington, are demanding they be paid $14.25 an hour for legal workers. The problem is if someone is coming here illegally, they might not know or demand to get what is required. My husband gets the farm paper and it said local workers are annoyed they are not paid that much.

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    3. That’s interesting to know. I wonder how prevalent those farms are that hire illegals?

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