Transcript: Hungry Harvesters

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MARK SOMMER: Have a century ago, legendary TV journalist Edward R. Murrow shocked a nation with his groundbreaking documentary, “Harvest of Shame.”

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MARK SOMMER: In the epic tradition of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath a quarter century before, he followed migrant farm workers and their families on their bleak odyssey through Florida labor camps in pursuit of ripening crops to pick.

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MARK SOMMER: Stark images of desperate poverty stunned viewers, rattled network executives, and prompted a denunciation of Murrow on the floor of the U.S. Senate. But they also generated thousands of calls and letters from a sympathetic audience. And they set a new standard of boldness and candor in investigative journalism that has never been surpassed.

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MARK SOMMER: Now five decades later, the same Immokalee, Florida fields where Murrow revealed the poverty and exploitation that underlie America’s agricultural abundance are the scene of a long-term struggle by migrant farm workers for dignity and a livable wage. Here, as everywhere our crops are grown, rootless laborers are planting and harvesting crops for our dinner tables that they themselves can’t afford to buy.

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): One of the things that we’re struggling for is for an industry-wide code of conduct that is enforced by the corporations who are the ones that are benefiting from these kinds of conditions.

SPEAKER: I’m not satisfied if any worker were not paid according to law, minimum wage.

MARK SOMMER: Today on A World of Possibilities, “Hungry Harvesters: Migrant Labor and the Poverty That Produces our Plenty”. How much are we willing to pay for the food we eat to assure that those whose labor brings it to our tables are paid enough to eat what they harvest?

ANDREA HINOJOSA: How much more do we have to bleed to show that we bleed like you? What is the difference among us? This is The United States of America.

MARK SOMMER: I’m Mark Sommer. Welcome to A World of Possibilities. Just a stone’s throw from Miami’s sizzling beaches, hip nightclubs, and worldâ€‘class hotels lies the hamlet of Immokalee, home to Florida’s largest farm worker community and the state’s most important center of agricultural production. Field laborers who are mostly of Mexican and Guatemalan descent, pick crops on vast holdings owned and operated by giant multinational corporations. They migrate up and down the Eastern seaboard following the tomato and citrus harvest.

It’s a rootless life, spent in long hours of back bending work. The farm worker’s dwelling in substandard housing, receiving poverty wages, often with families in tow. Things in Immokalee began to change, if slowly, in the early ‘90s, when a small group of workers who call themselves The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, or CIW, began to meet in a local church to discuss how to better their lives. Through work stoppages, general strikes, a month-long hunger strike, and a 230-mile march from Ft. Myers to Orlando, in 1998, the Immokalee farm workers won industry-wide raises of 13 to 25 percent.

Meanwhile, CIW began campaigning against what it calls modern day slavery, farm operations in southeastern states where workers labored in conditions a Federal prosecutor labeled involuntary servitude. In January, 2007, its antiâ€‘slavery campaign resulted in the conviction of Ron Evans, a crew leader in a remote north Florida labor camp who recruited homeless African-American men with promises of crack cocaine.

In a series of highly publicized campaigns in recent years targeting major fast food chains that depend in part on Immokalee’s tomato harvest for their burgers and burritos, CIW organizers succeeded in persuading Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and other corporations to commit to a penny a pound raise in the piecework rate of pay for Immokalee laborers.

To give us a ground level sense of the continuing struggle, Immokalee farm worker and CIW member Francisca Cortes joins us now by phone from CIW headquarters. Speaking through her translator, Melody Gonzales, Francisca says, “Because every field is different, it’s hard to estimate how much a worker really earns each day.”

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Sometimes it’s the first pick. Sometimes it’s the fourth pick of going through a particular set of fields. So there might be more tomatoes one day than the other. If you want to earn $50 dollars, you’re going to have to pick about two tons of tomatoes in a day.

MARK SOMMER: My experience with tomato plants is, by and large, they’re not the height of an adult. So you have to bend over to pick them. Is that right?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Yeah, you have to have your back bent. And then once you fill up the bucket with tomatoes, you have to run, carry it on your shoulders, and run to where there’s a truck, and then throw it up. And then they dump those tomatoes into the big trucks. So it’s very difficult, hard work.

MARK SOMMER: You run to the truck because every single moment you have to utilize in order to make enough to live. Is that right?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Yes, because you’re earning by the piece rate. So for every bucket that you turn in, you get a small ticket. And you have to save those to know how many buckets you picked on that day. And so that’s why you’re rushing to get as many buckets filled. But it’s also physical on some days when it’s very hot, you know, to make a whole lot of buckets.

MARK SOMMER: Do workers stop and take breaks? How do they get out of the sun? How do they get water? Where do they eat food? Where do they find food to eat?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): When you’re out there in the fields, there’s not much-- many places where you can get some shade. And as far as breaks, there is, you know, a break for lunch. But most of the workers take that break very late in the day, or take a very short break and just eat their lunch very quick so that they can get back to work. Because, again, you’re getting paid by the piece rate.

MARK SOMMER: So how many hours a day do the workers generally work?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): A lot of times it’s more than eight hours. Sometimes it’s 12, 13 hours. But then there’s also days when you only work two or three hours because it also depends on the weather and the season.

MARK SOMMER: Do the farms use pesticides on the tomatoes? And if so, are there any health effects on the workers that they have been able to trace back to these pesticides?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Yes. They use very strong pesticides. And what we have seen recently, that they have been affecting, especially women, that when were working when they were pregnant, and then they’ve had babies that are born with birth defects.

MARK SOMMER: Really? What kinds of birth defects?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Some of the things that we heard about and saw were babies that didn’t-- were born without arms or without legs.

MARK SOMMER: Do you have supervisors in the fields? And how do they relate to you? And how do the workers relate to the supervisors?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): There are supervisors out there in the fields. There are some that are nice, but there are also some that are very mean. And then there are those that violate the law by holding workers against their will. These are the cases of modern day slavery, of workers that are forced to work against their will. And these are the workers that don’t receive, you know, things like breaks or even sometimes a salary. And often they’re threatened with violence or the actual use of violence by these supervisors on these workers. So those are the most extreme cases.

MARK SOMMER: Tell us about one of those, if you can. You use the term modern day slavery. That’s a very strong term.

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has assisted Federal authorities in prosecuting six cases of modern day slavery. And the first one that the Federal bureau was involved in, the investigation was a case that took place in North Carolina. And it involved workers from Guatemala. And that case took a long time to get the evidence necessary to prove that this was, you know, actual modern day slavery. Because many people didn’t believe that such a thing could still exist in The United States.

MARK SOMMER: Have you seen such practices or conditions around Immokalee?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Yes. Here in Immokalee, there was also a case and then also near Naples there was another case where several dozen workers were also involved.

MARK SOMMER: How did the state respond? Are there Federal labor inspectors who come to the fields and make sure that there are no violations of labor law?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): From what we understand, there’s only one person, one investigator for the entire state of Florida. So it’s a lot of fields for one person to monitor the working conditions. And so that’s why one of the things that we’re struggling for is for an industry-wide code of conduct that is enforced by the corporations, the buyers who are the ones that are benefiting from these kinds of conditions, but a code of conduct that actually has teeth and is actually enforced to guarantee that there are no violations of these kind or others.

MARK SOMMER: I take it that the Immokalee strike has made news in Florida. What has the governor or what have state authorities said in response to complaints about abuse of workers and poor working conditions?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): The news has definitely gotten to them. And they haven’t said much, but, you know, most of the time they say that they’re concerned about the situation. But as far as taking concrete steps to change these conditions, there hasn’t been much done, which is why we have taken this into our own hands, to take our struggle to consumers, to people that consume, you know, the products that we’re harvesting so that they know, what are the conditions that we’re facing, and how together we can reform this industry to make it into a more just industry.

MARK SOMMER: First of all, what do the growers say about why they pay so little and have not raised the piece rate for 30 years?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): The growers claim that they’re not able to pay more because they just can’t. They’re under a lot of pressure from the big buyers and they have to negotiate with them, the price. But then there’s buyers that come and say, “Well, I’m going to buy,” you know, “…this huge amount of tomatoes. But I’m going to buy it at this price.” And they basically set the price. And so the growers have not, you know, done their job in negotiating a higher price to be able to pay a more fair wage for the workers. But we know that, you know, if the price of pesticides or the price of their machinery goes up, they’re going to have to pay it anyway, you know, and they’re going to figure out a way to pay those costs. But when it comes to doing something on behalf of the workers, they’re not willing to do it.

MARK SOMMER: What about the big companies? What did Taco Bell say when you first went to them? And how did you go to them? And what did they say?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): We first went to Taco Bell because we knew that they were an important buyer in the industry. And so the very beginning when we went to them, their response was not favorable, but we continued pressuring. We continued going to them, and each time gaining more and more support from people across the country, from consumers, from people of faith, from students, from different community and national organizations. And this is why after four years, we were able to pressure Taco Bell to finally take responsibility for the conditions and wages under which the tomatoes that they purchase are harvested. And they finally agreed to our demands.

MARK SOMMER: And what were the negotiations with Taco Bell like? You say in the beginning, they just refused to listen.

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): So in the very, you know, beginning, they ignored our petition and said, you know, that they had nothing to do with the conditions, wouldn’t even acknowledge that a slavery still existed. But they also couldn’t deny it to their consumers that it didn’t exist. But this changed as the pressure increased from their consumers, from their own community, and from their target market, you know, young people and from people of faith. And more and more they realized that-- you know, that they had to do something about this and that it was time for workers to earn a decent living.

MARK SOMMER: Once Taco Bell shifted its policy, did other major corporations, fast food companies and markets change their approach?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): The other companies that have agreed to the demands were recently McDonalds, that after a two-year campaign, also agreed to the same demands that Taco Bell did. And so now, you know, we’re in the process of getting other corporations to also acknowledge that this is something that is working and this is something that they can do. The rest of the brands that also belong to Yum! Brands, which is the parent company of Taco Bell-- so this includes Pizza Hut, A&W, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Long John Silvers. They have also entered into the agreement. Starting this upcoming season, all of these companies, along with McDonalds, with also be paying the penny more per pound and working with us to create a stronger code of conduct.

MARK SOMMER: What about Burger King?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Well, Burger King has not, you know, done anything concretely. They claim that the working conditions are not so bad for the workers. But we know that it will just take a little bit more pressure to bring them to the table and agree to the demands. So we’ve been giving them some time there. But the pressure is increasing and their time might be up pretty soon where we’re-- you know, we’re giving them opportunity. But we might be having to increase the pressure a lot more on them.

MARK SOMMER: If you were sitting in a room with the negotiators from Burger King and a number of other major companies had already decided to change their policies, and Burger King has not, what would you say to Burger King?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): Well, for one thing, I think it’s pretty ridiculous that recently Burger King claims to be a leader in animal rights. And, you know, and they’re defending the rights of the animals in their supply chain. And so if I had them in front of me, I would say, “Well, if animals have rights, I’m a human being and I also have rights. And so I want my rights to be respected.”

MARK SOMMER: Your struggle has been long, of course, and difficult. And it’s not over. What explains your success when so many others have failed?

FRANCISCA CORTES (TRANSLATOR): I think a lot of it has to do with the strategy, the philosophy of how we work. Here, one of our mottos is that we’re all leaders, that we can all provide something to this movement, and to strengthen this movement. And so I think that’s one of the things that makes our organization so strong, that everyone can take part and help in shaping this movement.

MARK SOMMER: Immokalee, Florida farm worker, Francisca Cortes. After a short break, a response from the one major fast food company that refuses to settle with Florida farm workers.

ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to A World of Possibilities. To hear the podcast of this program and to access our show archives, please visit our website at AWorldOfPossibilities.com, or visit iTunes.

MARK SOMMER: Following on the decisions by McDonalds and Taco Bell’s parent company, Yum! Brands, to pay coalition workers an additional penny a pound for its piece work, CIW set its sights on Burger King, mounting an intense publicity campaign with the help of its now extensive national network of supporting churches, organizations, and journalists.

But despite adverse news coverage, as of the summer of 2007, Burger King had still refused to join Taco Bell and McDonalds in agreeing to the one cent pay raise. Steven Grover, Burger King’s vice-president of food safety, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance argues that his company is as concerned as anyone else about the conditions in which Immokalee workers labor and live, but that the Taco Bell agreement doesn’t address the issue in the systemic way it needs to be in order to put an end to longstanding human rights abuses.

Instead, Burger King has proposed an independent survey of workers’ wages, and has offered to employ in its own operations any farm worker who would like to change occupations. To make the case for Burger King’s holdout stance, Steven Grover joins us now from his office in Miami.

STEVEN GROVER: We’re working very closely to try to make sure that the things that CIW is alleging are happening, are indeed not happening. We’ve also asked the CIW to provide us with names or information of employers who are not in compliance with the law or who are committing violations so that we may investigate and take action.

MARK SOMMER: Tell us what the safe program actually consists of. You say that Burger King, McDonalds and other fast food chains have drawn up this set of standards. What are the standards? And how are you enforcing them?

STEVEN GROVER: Basically it’s a set of standards for farm workers for their working conditions, for payment, that they are treated within the constraints of the law. And there’s an audit part of that program where the farmers are actually audited to that standard by a third party auditing company.

MARK SOMMER: Now as I understand it, the laws, the labor laws regarding migrant farm workers are very weak. That’s widely acknowledged. So meeting that standard is not a particularly high standard. In fact, most normal labor laws don’t apply to farm workers. Are you satisfied with the law as being the standard that you want to use?

STEVEN GROVER: I’m not satisfied if any worker were to be abused or if any worker is not being paid according to law, minimum wage.

MARK SOMMER: Well, let’s look at what is being paid to tomato pickers in Immokalee. As I understand it, it’s about 45 cents per 32-pound bucket. And in order to make $50 dollars in a day before taxes, you have to pick between two and two and a half tons of tomatoes.

STEVEN GROVER: I don't know where you’re getting your facts from. There have been three major studies, I understand. Most of the studies have shown that the workers who pick tomatoes in Florida, their effective wage is about $9.50 an hour, somewhere in there. It varies. I have heard that from the CIW. And I’ve asked for data. But I can’t find any of the growers who will-- and there’s no one who will confirm that data except for the CIW.

MARK SOMMER: Are you saying that the figures of 45 cents for a 32-pound bucket, that’s not true, that they are--

STEVEN GROVER: I have many growers who will tell you that that’s not true. There tends to be a debate here. And I guess it’s getting to the truth, becomes the problem.

MARK SOMMER: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says that, and apparently dozens of other labor, legal, and social research experts are saying that those studies that you’re citing were not based on standard legitimate survey standards.

STEVEN GROVER: Then let’s do a study. Let’s do a real study and figure out what the truth is. And we’ll let the CIW help us determine what the real wage is.

MARK SOMMER: All right. So specifically, what would you-- Who should do this study? It should be an independent--

STEVEN GROVER: Yeah. I think they clearly do not agree with the Florida Department of Agriculture, the “Sister Ruth” study, and the growers. They’ve alleged that those are all biased. You know, I’ve been talking with them for two years. And I visited Immokalee. And I’ve visited the pickers. And I’ve actually gone out in the fields and watched this being done. And these people work very hard. In fact, we’re quite proud of the hard work and labor. But the fields that I saw and what I saw taking place has been nothing of what CIW is reporting.

MARK SOMMER: Okay. Let me ask you, when you say you’re quite proud of how hard they work, are you proud of the fact that they make on the average about $10,000 dollars a year?

STEVEN GROVER: In Immokalee, they work for approximately three months. And many of them do make about $10,000 dollars in the three months that they work.

MARK SOMMER: Put yourself for a moment, you say you’ve been in those fields. But you’ve been in those fields as the vice-president of a major international corporation.

STEVEN GROVER: Yes.

MARK SOMMER: And what do you think would be a fair wage if you were working? What would you feel you needed to receive to be fairly treated?

STEVEN GROVER: I think that fair wage needs to be worked out between the workers and their employer. One of the problems with these secret agreements is, is that these people are not employed by Burger King. And when they’re picking the tomatoes, we don’t even know if they’re a Burger King tomato or not. This is akin to going and buying a tomato in a grocery store and paying for it and leaving it and having someone come out in the parking lot and say, you know, “I picked that tomato. You owe me some money.”

MARK SOMMER: What the growers say often is that their caught in the middle. They would pay more if they were being paid more by their purchasers.

STEVEN GROVER: The growers in this case have written a letter to the CIW. And actually they wrote a letter to us saying that these agreements that Yum! and McDonalds have signed are possibly illegal, and they want to have nothing to do with them.

MARK SOMMER: What growers have sent that letter?

STEVEN GROVER: The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, the growers in Immokalee. They’ve actually sent us a letter saying-- asking us not to participate and to work with them to improve the wages for the workers. And we’ve agreed. The problem is, is we’ve got to get to the truth. And I understand, you don’t want to take one side here. But CIW’s painting one picture, which is very bleak, very dark, saying it applies everywhere. The growers are painting another picture. Florida Agriculture’s painting another picture. And none of these pictures agree.

And I can tell you that over a giving span of a year, I know that it’s quite easy to think that we’re all in collusion here to pay lower prices. But we don’t. Over the span of the year, a price of a case of tomatoes for us can fluctuate as much as ten and upwards of fifteen dollars. We buy tomatoes on the market, just like a consumer buys it at the grocery store. We pay what the price is.

MARK SOMMER: What has it been like to be a holdout when others are moving forward in a different direction?

STEVEN GROVER: Well, I don't know. You know, there’s many quick service restaurants. And they still simply want us to give them some money and sign a confidential agreement with them. And quite frankly, we’re not there yet. We’ve left the door open. I don’t think we want to sign an agreement where we have no assurance that the money that we would be giving would actually get to the workers that pick the tomatoes.

MARK SOMMER: If you were crafting it yourself so that you could assure that the money you would be giving would go to the workers, how would you make the arrangement? What arrangement would you make?

STEVEN GROVER: I don't know. I think we would rather work with the growers to make sure that all of the workers are receiving a fair and legal and just wage for the work that they do.

MARK SOMMER: What do think should be done long-term to change the system? Or do you think the system is basically working the way it should?

STEVEN GROVER: I think that there’s probably-- there needs to be focus, leadership from a company like Burger King. I think it’s important that we send a very strong message. You know? We do not want people exploited in this country. It’s long past time that any company or as a public, people should support that.

MARK SOMMER: In principle, this sounds, you know, really terrific. I think it would sound terrific to anyone who heard you. What are the steps that you can take that put Burger King out front on this issue so that it puts them as a leader in establishing standards for labor rights and for human rights?

STEVEN GROVER: We have a vendor code of conduct. And I will tell you, we have and will continue to remove people who are suppliers to our system for any violation of human rights, any violation of wage and hour law, or anything else. We will remove them from our system. I think that is one of the strongest and most effective ways that we can act as a company. In other words, if you do that, you will not participate in our system as a supplier. So we use the power of purchase to not support any grower who would engage in those activities. I think that’s, quite frankly, as members of the public how we can do it, if we simply will not buy those products.

MARK SOMMER: What kind of public agreement would you be prepared to sign onto, either with the CIW or with a broader range of parties, including the state in order to establish consistent rules?

STEVEN GROVER: I unfortunately think all this talk about paying checks and a penny a pound and secret agreements has not furthered the dialogue, the public dialogue on, how do we solve this problem? If workers are being mistreated by their employers, will a check that we write distributed there really solve that problem? I think that you have to do this in the open and have open public discourse on this. And really, you know, pull the covers back, so to speak, so that you can get to the bottom of who’s committing this, and why is it being committed. And how best do we work with government, you know, the workers, and the people who buy the products and the growers who are trying--

You know, there’s some growers out there that are doing the right thing. How do we work with all of them to try to resolve this?

MARK SOMMER: But it sounds to me like you’re ready to go to that place, beyond what the minimum is now required because you see that somehow this whole issue has brought forth the question of, what constitutes a dignified and reasonable compensation for very hard work that’s part of what makes our lives possible?

STEVEN GROVER: Right. One of the most important things to a company like Burger King, beyond the price of a commodity, is the stability and the predictability of being able to obtain that commodity year-round. It is really much more important for Burger King to have stability and a consistent price than it is for us to push the industry or growers to the brink of-- you know, of bankruptcy.

MARK SOMMER: Which also means you want a more stable workforce.

STEVEN GROVER: Exactly. And a stable workforce is a huge part of that. Knowing where your workers are going to come from, having loyal workers, having workers who know this business, so that there is stability in being able to pick these tomatoes, get them to market, and then get them to Burger King. You know, in many ways, whether-- I’ve tried to convince the CIW that their interests and our interests are actually aligned here. It’s just that, how do we-- I guess where the CIW and Burger King disagree is how to solve the problem.

MARK SOMMER: Yeah, the other day, I thought of the phrase, “Don’t attack each other. Attack the problem.”

STEVEN GROVER: There you go. Wow, can I use that? That’s-- I’m sorry, but that’s very prophetic in this case. I mean, we are at a point where we disagree on the solution. But we can still treat each other with dignity and respect.

MARK SOMMER: Steven Grover, Burger King’s vice-president of food safety, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. I’m Mark Sommer, and this is A World of Possibilities, distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

ANNOUNCER: This is A World of Possibilities. We enjoy hearing from our listeners. If you wish to contact us (and we hope you do) here’s how. Please direct emails to comments@aworldofpossibilities.com. This program is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

MARK SOMMER: I’m Mark Sommer. And this is A World of Possibilities. This program, “Hungry Harvesters: Migrant Labor and the Poverty That Produces Our Plenty” is underwritten by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Coming up in this half hour, harvesting the sweetest of sweet onions. Also, a former migrant farm worker who dared quit the fields of agri-biz to start her own organic farm. But first, he’s been called a non-fiction Steinbeck, the foremost documentarist of the great human drama, The Borderlands. David Bacon is a photojournalist who documents the plight of farm workers in the fields that supply American supermarkets. A former union organizer, he’s devoted his life to defending workers’ rights using his camera as a weapon against what he sees as rank injustice.

David Bacon’s photojournalism continues the gritty documentary tradition of starkly realistic Depression era photography by people like Walker Evans and Dorothy Lange, capturing the quiet dignity of migrant workers and sharecroppers in conditions of degrading poverty.

To convey his lens eye perspective, David Bacon joins us now from the studios of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Do you see that same sort of quiet dignity? In other words, do you see in those photographs and through your mind’s eye, do you see victims? Or do you see people who have their own lives, and even though they’re very difficult, they are people are great substance and nobility on some level?

DAVID BACON: Well, I definitely do not see nor believe in farm workers as victims. I think that all workers, first of all, have dignity. And so I’m trying to show our humanity by looking at, first of all, how we work, and also how the different kinds of work affect the way that we live as workers. Because some work, for instance, is higher paid. If you’re a longshore worker, you can make $75,000 dollars a year. If you’re a farm worker, you’re lucky if you’re making $15,000 dollars a year. So that definitely affects how we live as workers. You know, some workers live better than others, shall we say.

MARK SOMMER: Take us through the life of a family or of an individual who comes and lives at the margins.

DAVID BACON: Well, I think the first thing to remember is that there are probably about 12 million people in The United States who don’t have a visa, who were born somewhere else, came here from some other country, and don’t have a legal visa for being here. That is a huge, huge number of people. If everybody went home tomorrow, our economy would collapse, basically. There would be nobody picking fruit and vegetables. There would be nobody working in meat packing plants. Construction sites would shut down. Restaurants would close. Hotels wouldn’t have anybody to change the bed sheets.

MARK SOMMER: Did you see that film, Day Without a Mexican?

DAVID BACON: Yes.

[film]

DAVID BACON: That film and the title of it, you know, I think many, many, many, many Mexicans and many immigrants here who never actually saw the film were very affected by the title of that film.

[film]

DAVID BACON: And as a result of it, came out in those demonstrations in April and May of 2006, and especially the people that didn’t go to work on May Day, on May first. And I think people were trying to send a message that had a lot to do with the title of that film, saying, “You say that we should go home. Try living for a day without us. We are working. We are responsible for a lot of the wealth that is being produced here.”

But also I think that there’s a justice question here, because the actual living standards of most people who don’t have papers are very low. And when workers start talking about trying to raise those wages and make a better living, then you see people’s legal status being used against them. In other words, you know, the foreman of the crew that you work in will, you know, kind of make it known, “Look — if you cause too much problems here, first of all, you know, there might be an immigration raid. You might all be picked up and deported. So just better to be quiet.”

MARK SOMMER: Now, does some of it come back to a responsibility of us as consumers, that if we want people to be better paid to do this work, we need to be willing to pay a little more for the food they harvest and grow?

DAVID BACON: Well, I think most surveys do show that people would be willing to pay a little bit more for the food that they eat if it meant that the people who were responsible for harvesting that food got a significant increase in their standard of living. That being said though, I think that we need to be careful about this idea. Because it seems to imply that the wages of workers make up a really big percentage of the price that we’re paying for vegetables and fruits and food in the supermarket. And that in fact is not the case.

I did a story some years ago about workers in the fields harvesting green onions right south of the border in the Mexicali Valley in northern Mexico. These workers were working for U.S. growers or for Mexican growers in partnership with U.S. distributors. In a lot of cases actually, U.S. growers had stopped growing green onions in southern California and had moved that production across the border into northern Mexico.

And there, the wages that were being paid to workers were so low that workers were bringing their families, their kids to work with them because it was really impossible for those family to survive on the labor of adults alone. So I went and talked to some of the growers and the distributors here in the U.S. who were selling those products here in the U.S. And I asked them, “Look — if you raise the price of a bunch of green onions in the supermarket by a penny and that penny went all the way down the line and got paid directly to the workers who were involved in harvesting those green onions, it would double the piece rate that they were being paid. And if those workers got double the piece rate, those kids wouldn’t have to work in the fields any longer. And the standard of living of those families would improve considerably.”

And yet in the supermarket, nobody would even notice if the price was increased by a penny. And the response of the growers was that, “Well, first of all, we don’t have any way of making sure that if we increase the price, that that money would travel all the way down and actually get to those workers. And in any case, if I do it and my competitors don’t do it, it’s going to place me in a disadvantageous position.” And finally the ultimate clincher argument was, “We’re not responsible.” You know? “It’s not our business what happens to those workers there, really. Our business is to sell vegetables at the prices that we can afford to(?) get(?).”

MARK SOMMER: David Bacon. His images of 21st Century migrant labor can be seen at DBacon.igc.org.

Vidalia. Walla Walla. In recent years, Americans have gone sweet on onions, savoring an increasing variety of bulbs that are more mild than hot. The
Vidalia onion enjoys official state vegetable status in its home state of Georgia, and can only be called a Vidalia if it’s grown near the south Georgia town of Vidalia. Unlike Immokalee’s farm workers, the 18,000 migrant and seasonal workers harvesting this crop labor in relatively good working conditions according to Andrea Hinojosa, of the Southeast Georgia Communities Project.

The SEGCP serves low income, mostly Latino farm workers. For her clients, she says, the primary issue is healthcare.

ANDREA HINOJOSA: Right now, they’ve seized all services basically, you know? We do have some emergency, you know, Medicaid services that are still provided on a very small scale. Other than that, they can’t go anywhere else without putting up money.

MARK SOMMER: So what do you say to those in-state agencies and elsewhere who say, “Well, look — these people are not in this country legally. Why should they receive services for which the rest of us are paying taxes”?

ANDREA HINOJOSA: These people are paying taxes just like me and you. There’s millions of immigrant people in this country that are living by the rules of the land. There’s a bandage over our eyes because it’s not convenient for us to see the facts. And how much more do we have to bleed to show that we bleed like you? What is the difference among us? This is The United States of America. We all come from an immigrant background. As someone who lives in a community like the one we live in, it angers you to see that we truly say that we are Christians. But yet we choose to give other human beings the life of hell.

MARK SOMMER: How do the growers and farmers respond to the-- Do they ever offer any kind of healthcare benefit to their workers?

ANDREA HINOJOSA: No. The farmers here in Georgia are exempt from providing even workman’s compensation. You know, we have a wonderful relationship with the farmers in our communities. You know, I have not seen a farm worker go without healthcare treatment if there is an injury due to farm work. There’s a situation that we go by here in this organization as we work in the community in trying to outreach to this population. We know where we can go and we know where we cannot step into.

Our work is not to leave our shoes at the door. Our work is to work with the farmer that does not want us on their premises, to help him understand the good it would be for us to be part of his farm and help his workers so he can have a better workforce.

One of the things that we have found as an organization is that we’re seeing a lot more-- When-- Before we used to have a lot of family units in our community. We’re seeing a lot more single male, single young, you know, males who are coming in. Now we’re seeing less and less families. Another thing, too, that we’ve seen is the movement of people that have been here for many years that are leaving the State of Georgia.

MARK SOMMER: And why is that?

ANDREA HINOJOSA: They’re tired. They’re frustrated. Here, you can’t, of course, like many other states, can’t get a driver’s license. Now you can’t even get a tag for your car. You can’t get your title. They’re totally putting a freeze on anything that helps these people be mobile.

MARK SOMMER: As the border tightens due to border fences and stricter enforcement of various immigration laws, are you going to see over time a shortage of workers for harvesting in the fields?

ANDREA HINOJOSA: Most definitely. Already, we have not yet even just recently moved into this new SB-529 that came into effect July the first, and we’re already seeing that we’re getting a lot of calls from crew leaders who work with these huge farmers that need people to work. When before at this time last year, we were not having this kind of issue. And we don’t know what’s going to happen during the onion setting season, which is in November. Are we going to have enough people to harvest it next year?

MARK SOMMER: If you were in the position to have responsibility for making policy at the Federal level, how would you set the policy for migrant farm workers?

ANDREA HINOJOSA: I think that America has enough people in this country that can do the work that we are contracting out. We continue to bring people by the thousands and thousands in who, not all of them go back because they flee the camps, you know? And now they’re in the country illegally. Who do you prefer having in your community? Someone that has already been there, that you know has already assimilated into the community, whose children are being raised in this country, who are going to be the future leaders of this country? Or bring in new people that are a different situation, that we’ll have to deal with?

Weed out the bad folks. Take ‘em out. Deport those that rape and that kill and that do all these bad-- you know, that have a criminal background. Those are the folks you should be focusing on, not the good family, the hardworking family that is trying to make it.

MARK SOMMER: Andrea Hinajosa. In a moment, farm worker turned organic farmer, Maria Ines Catalan.

ANNOUNCER: This is A World of Possibilities. We love hearing from our listeners. Contact us at comments@aworldofpossibilities.com.

MARK SOMMER: For the great majority of migrant farm workers, owning a farm of one’s own in their adopted country is a dream beyond imagining. For Maria Ines Catalan, an immigrant from her native Mexico in 1986, it took all the passion and perseverance she could muster as a single mother raising four children on minimum wage, picking vegetables in California’s Central Valley. She was also assisted by an innovative program run by the non-profit Agricultural Land-Based Training Association in Salinas that teaches agricultural and marketing techniques to farm workers becoming farmers.

Never shy to tackle challenges, Maria Ines has chosen, not only to grow organically, but to market her produce partly through community supported agriculture, an increasingly popular practice where families pay farmers in advance and then get a guaranteed quantity of veggies as they come into season. Working twelve-hour days on 14 acres for a hard earned independent livelihood, she also participates in a producer co-op, AMO(?) Organics, where farmers jointly lease land, share water, equipment, and insurance.

Today, Maria’s vice-president of Lídares Campesinas, an organization dedicated to meeting the needs of Latina farm worker women. We spoke with her through her translator and farm hand friend, Maggie Fernandez. She began our conversation by recalling her transition from fieldworker to agricultural entrepreneur and activist.

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): The experience that I had when working with farmers that use pesticides, I came across people that were sick because of that. And I even have some nephews that are sick. My mother is disabled for life because of working in the fields. It catch my attention that there’s other ways of-- other kind of agriculture.

I just got interested in becoming my own boss. I stopped working. I didn’t work for three years so I can dedicate myself into training. In that time, I learned how to ride a tractor and use heavy equipment. I also learned how to work the land and work without pesticides.

After getting all that training and after having the experience of just working with men, that’s when I met Lídares Campesinas. And I got interested because of them being only women. I want to learn what this woman do (sic). And I started going to their meetings. I have had the opportunity to receive all the training. I’m the specialist on the topics that they have from sexual harassment to domestic violence, hourly rates and salary. And now I am the vice-president for that organization.

MARK SOMMER: Is there better regulation on the part of the growers and on the part of the state authorities over the conditions in the fields?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): There hasn’t been a lot of changes or major changes, but there has been regulations in behalf of the different agencies.

MARK SOMMER: Have those regulations been enforced though?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): Some of them have. Some of them haven’t.

MARK SOMMER: Let’s go back to your farm. What are you growing there?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): A little bit of everything. We have four different types of strawberries, 14 different types of tomatoes.

MARK SOMMER: Fourteen different types of tomatoes? I’m coming to get some.

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): Ten different varieties of chiles, hot peppers, sweet and hot, six different types of ...(inaudible). The different types of things that we grow, it depends on the season.

MARK SOMMER: Where do you sell your produce?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): In the best places in the whole world, the San Francisco farmers' market, and other type of farmers' market, Berkeley. The best.

MARK SOMMER: Do you enjoy spending time at the farmers' markets?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): Of course, I like to be with the people out there and be able to show them how the produce itself came about and how it was grown.

MARK SOMMER: How does that feel to have your family all around you and all of you are working on the same farm? Is that a good feeling?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): It was one of my dreams that I always had, that my grandsons and granddaughters would be raised the same way I was. I was happy. I was free. And that’s a pattern that I knew that I wanted to keep. And I wanted not to be working, just working for other people and then get hurt and end up like my mother.

MARK SOMMER: How much of a possibility do you think it is for others to follow the path that you have? Is this something that only a very few people can really do?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): I think it’s very hard for a woman, because I can say that I was a single woman with four children, and it was very hard, hard for me. That’s my second goal, is to have a program in Hollister where I can help the woman do the same thing I did.

MARK SOMMER: May I ask a question of Anna for a moment? What was it like for you? Were you just sort of running along behind her, wondering, “What is mom doing now”?

ANNA: I remember crying and begging: “I don’t want to go.” I didn’t want to be involved in anything. I was, like, “No, how embarrassing. If my friends see me, I’ll die of embarrassment.”

MARK SOMMER: Ah, yes. This happens across every culture, I’m sure. And what was it like for you, Maria, to have your daughter rolling her eyes saying, “Oh my god, mom,” as a farmer?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): It was a torture. “Why don’t you just study to be-- to work in an office?”

MARK SOMMER: What would you say to women still working in the fields the way you did about what they could do that would make things different?

MARIA INES CATALAN (TRANSLATOR): I would tell them that if for any reason they can’t leave their work in the fields that whatever job they do is good. But as long as they learn somehow about their rights, and for them to find a way of being better-- And this is the land of the opportunity. And as long as they find a way of doing it-- And a woman’s always going to be a leader [Spanish] is the leader of her family, of her community. Woman has always been something very important for anything in life, something that we have to remember.

MARK SOMMER: Maria Ines Catalan. When we pull up to the supermarket checkout counter, we’re often startled when the cashier tells us the tally. But for those who plant and pick the crops we buy, the food we eat is often beyond their reach. How must it feel to spend your days bent double to harvest tomatoes, carrots, and strawberries, then head back to a tent or shanty, bone tired, but lacking the money or food to feed your kids?

If this is work we don’t want to do ourselves, it’s all the more reason to pay a living wage to those who do it for us. Even when we want to do right by those who raise and harvest the food that sustains us, it’s not easy to be sure that the money we spend in the supermarket will filter down the food chain into their pocketbooks.

There are many middle men between us and them. And each takes a cut. The poorest and weakest work longest and hardest, and receive the last and least. One could say it has ever been thus, but that doesn’t mean it need always be so. To provide a well-earned living wage to those at the bottom of the food chain would require a systemic shift. It will take all of us higher up on the chain, pulling it hard in the direction of those at the bottom, to achieve a more proper balance between contribution and reward.

Our abundance must not be built on their indigence. We ignore their desperation at our peril. I’m Mark Sommer, and this has been A World of Possibilities. Thanks for listening.

ANNOUNCER: For more information on today’s topic, please click on the listener action link at AWorldOfPossibilities.com. This program was produced and edited by Chuck Rogers, Tammy Rae Scott, Kara Hochner, and Teresa Hughes(?) with administrative support from Ali Cook and Susan Semenov. Production engineer is “Tofu” Mike Schwartz. Support for this program is provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Music is courtesy of Chiaroscuro Records, Ancestor Radio, Putumayo World Music, Flying Fish Records, Kattguld/XTC, Fat Possum Records, and Nonesuch Records. Sounds from “Harvest of Shame” is courtesy of CBS. Sound from A Day Without a Mexican courtesy of Altavista Films. This program is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network. Thanks for listening.

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