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April 24, 2009

Exploited farm workers pick the tomatoes we eat

Brian Watson

Last month, I spent two days in Immokalee, Fla. I went there to see firsthand the working and living conditions of migrant, immigrant farmworkers, and to learn more about the agricultural industry of the United States.

The connection of this industry to Massachusetts is significant and direct: In the winter months, most of the orange juice and about 90 percent of the tomatoes in our grocery stores and restaurants come from the Immokalee region. Migrant farm labor picks virtually every tomato we eat.

Immokalee is located in southern Florida about half an hour east of Fort Myers and Naples. From Fort Myers, the drive to Immokalee is grim. The two-lane blacktop tracks straight as an arrow for 20 miles through a landscape that is often dry, brown, scrubby and bleak. The climate is so hot and intense that any cleared land quickly becomes desiccated unless irrigated.

Before leaving Fort Myers, I drove through some of the affordable but cheesy tract developments that were thrown up during the real estate boom. Arbitrarily placed on the pancake-flat landscape — relating to nothing — the subdivisions consist of one-story, low-roofed, drab houses on large, denuded lots. The homes look forlorn and anonymous, and many have been abandoned or are in foreclosure.

Every so often, randomly and bizarrely, one sprinklered lawn will stand out, a rectangle of Kelly green in a sea of brown. Many of the tracts are miles from stores and jobs. I saw not one person on the street in any of the developments.

That depressing lack of placeness continues in Immokalee. Devoted entirely to the agricultural business, Immokalee has a population of 30,000, more than half of whom are migrant crop workers from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and other Central American countries.

The farmworker housing is shocking. Visible from the main streets — not hidden at all — are worn dirt lots holding shacks; depleted, ancient trailer homes; and barracks-style and road-motel-style buildings. They are owned by just a few landlords and — testament to the laziness, cheapness, arrogance and indifference of these owners — entire groups of buildings have been painted drearily in the same dull color.

The structures are old, neglected, dirty and grim — without heat or air conditioning — but the rents are high. Landlords charge $1,600 a month for a trailer and $750 a month for a 12-foot-by-12-foot room in a building. Because farmworkers are paid poorly, 10 or 12 of them — usually young men ages 18 to 30 — will crowd into a trailer, and four or five will share a barracks room.

The rooms are dark, smelly, stained and packed. Some mattresses sit directly on the floor while others are supported above those on thin, bowing plywood. Most rooms contain a sink, stove, refrigerator and toilet nominally intended to make the room an "apartment." In reality, the housing is disgraceful and shows years of neglect.

Working conditions are even worse. Laborers routinely spend 10 or 11 hours in unshaded fields on 95-degree days. They are bent over — picking tomatoes with both hands — and pressured to work without breaks.

To deflect the brutal sun and the pesticides and herbicides that coat the plants, the workers swelter inside long sleeves, gloves, hats, hoods and coveralls. Sometimes, ongoing pesticide spraying blows right over nearby pickers.

As fast as they can, the workers fill 32-pound buckets and lug them to flatbed trucks that are moving slowly down the rows of plants. Workers must pick relentlessly to keep up with the trucks. At the end of the longest days, a worker may have filled his bucket 80 or 90 times, for which he'll receive about $40.

While many — perhaps two-thirds — of Immokalee's migrants are illegal immigrants, they are doing work under conditions and for wages that few Americans will accept. Farmworkers are not protected by wage or labor laws and are terribly exploited.

Furthermore, despite frequent accusations that "illegals" are taking advantage of America's welfare and social service programs, it is only legal immigrants who may receive benefits.

The bitter truth — and the real outrage — of the situation is that legal, migrant immigrant farmworkers who work 60 hours a week make such poverty-level wages that they still need and qualify for programs such as food stamps.

Without migrant workers, Florida's crops would rot in the fields. The state exports 1.2 billion gallons of orange juice and 1.5 billion pounds of tomatoes a year. Its fruits and vegetables bring in $7 billion annually.

Immokalee farmworkers are abused and exploited simply because crop growers can get away with it — economically, the abuse is unnecessary. As proof, think of this next time you buy tomatoes: An increase of just one cent per pound in the retail price of tomatoes — if passed along to the migrant pickers — would almost double their wages.

¢¢¢

Brian T. Watson of Swampscott is a regular Salem News columnist. Contact him at watson@nii.net.

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