Could/Would You Do This?

Nan Immigration, , ,

I bet I know one person that you’d NEVER, EVER find doing what these folks are doing.

Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

As hundreds of fires burn across California forming a heavy cloud of smoke, these farm workers trudge on keeping the essential agriculture industry alive.

Of course they have few other options since there is no paid time off for sick days … and most of them NEED that $5.50 an hour (and $1.60 per box filled) in order to survive in a state like California with an outrageously high cost of living.

So they continue to toil under record-high temperatures and suffocating smoke — many without any protection from the terrible air quality. Even though state regulations require companies to provide masks for workers when the air quality reaches a certain threshold of “very bad,” it doesn’t always happen.

Few appreciate these workers. In fact, there are those in our society who look down on them. They feel no compassion and often do their best to ignore they even exist. Instead, they sit in their air-conditioned mansions, caress their bank and stock statements, dine on luxurious meals (that often include foods provided by these people) … and support a president that puts the children of these immigrant workers in cages.

I urge you to read this article about the “impossible choice” these workers must face during this catastrophic event taking place in California.

28 thoughts on “Could/Would You Do This?”

  3. In one simple, straightforward word: EXPLOITATION.

    That is the norm now of our corporate-runned, super-fueled hyper-capitalistic economy. Corporate profits come before and above worker or consumer protections. First or second generation immigrants are prime targets of exploitation of this magnitude. The southern border states are renown for this neo-victimization—slavery(?).

    Nan, you may remember me sharing this data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition regarding wage-to-housing disparity in the U.S. I covered Texas, but here is the 2020 data for California:

    I will provide another graphic below in a sub-comment, as well as the link to the NLIHC website after that comment, i.e. not sure of your weblink-settings for your comments. 🙂

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  4. You missed one of the biggest issues for these workers, or for some reason overlooked stating it plainly. Very few of these worker are Californians, or even Americans. I quote, “It’s a largely immigrant workforce, many undocumented. Many are from indigenous communities from southern Mexico who face even greater barriers to accessing services and reporting labor abuses.”
    These workers are here ONLY AS LONG AS THEY ARE ABLE TO TOLERATE THE POOR WORKING CONDITIONS. THEY CAN BE SENT HOME AT ANY TIME, WITHOUT RECEIVING PAY FOR WORK ALREADY DONE, if THEY SPEAK TOO LOUDLY ABOUT WHAT THEY HAVE TO ENDURE.
    Canada brings in these same workers, or their brothers, sisters, and neighbours into Ontario for the tomato and other harvests. Picking tomatoes is back-breaking work. I spent two days working with them many years ago, TWO DAYS! The third day I woke up so sore and stiff I could not get out of bed. I was promptly fired, and thrown off the farm by MY SISTER’S HUSBAND. He did not pay me for the first two days because he said my room and board ate all that up. MY OWN BROTHER-IN-LAW. If he could treat me that way, his wife’s brother, how does he treat Mexican labourers that he can only talk to through an interpreter? I have not seen or spoken to my sister since because he will not allow us. (That is a family matter, but that is the monster who “owns” these workers livelihoods. The government authorities say they try to police it, but there is no way they can succeed. I doubt California is any different!)
    I am glad you brought this situation up, Nan, but please do not pull any punches. These workers are virtual slaves, “virtual” only in that they do get paid pittances of what a white American would and could demand to be paid, if they were willing to do this type of work. THEY ARE NOT.
    Things are somewhat better now than when I spoke of, but not much. Their sleeping quarters have to be clean, private, and somewhat spacy. The food they are given to eat must be of a certain quality. Those are easy for governments to check on. But actual working conditions, now with the need for covid
    protections, inspectors cannot do random checks. Inspection checks have to be scheduled, by law. The governments knows what is going on, and are complicit in the abuses.
    This is my Canada, and your United States of America. And these workers are not white. Go figure.

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    • Rawgod, there is a lot abuse with foreign workers. But this is changing. Overdue, but changing.

      I worked many years planting, priming, and laying new kiln floors in the tobacco fields of SW Ontario. I worked alongside many foreigners, usually Haitians, sometimes Jamaicans. I paid my way through university doing this. And it is very hard work.

      I was paid more not because of skin colour but because transportation was an understood deduction, a factor flying in and out these workers and arranging for transportation. Most of these guys spent a good portion on items to take home… usually on electronics, bicycles, and always toys for kids. The living quarters were cramped but no worse than my time in the field with the military and with much, much better food.

      So one learns quickly which farmers are good employers and which ones are not. Those who have a good reputation get the cream of workers and their efficiency and output is something to behold. Many returned to the same farm through several generations.

      I say this because the good rarely makes news yet it is widespread. These workers often develop a lifestyle in migratory farm work that keeps their families whole and healthy and it is of great value to both parties. I don’t think I have ever read this but see non stop articles about how terrible and abusive this system is when that is only part of the story and one that does need addressing by regulation. But – like unbelievable government subsidies throughout the agricultural sector – there is a general ignorance from the urban population about how farms really work and why the migrant system is widely used. It’s not all bad. Far from it.

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      • “I was paid more not because of skin colour but because transportation was an understood deduction, a factor flying in and out these workers and arranging for transportation.”
        While it supports the farmers profit rate, the farmers need the workers more than the workers need the farmers. At its best, transportation should be paid for completely by the farmer, unless the worker demands special transportation, or offsite accommadation. Do foreign doctors or nurses pay their airfare back and forth twice a year, or more, in order to fill positions Canadian workers cannot fill? They do not! Even housing and food costs for foreign medical workers are paid for by the hosting medical systems. If you want them, you pay for them. Farm labourers should be treated no less than medical professionals are, and truthfully they should be treated better. Canadians for the most part can do the work, but no one wants to. It SHOULD NOT BE UP TO THE WORKERS TO PAY FOR WHAT THE OWNERS SO DESPERATELY NEED. At the very least the owners should have to pay 50% of transpotation costs, but I would never pay my way to travel to earn wages. Need I say that oil companies are paying to bring nonlocal workers to the oil fields, on top of paying top wages when they get there. Farm workers are paid scab wages. They cannot afford to pay capitalist transpo prices for back-breaking labour.
        If the labourers eent on strike for even one year, our crops would rot on the fields. Everone would lose. The thing is, farmers can, and do, pass their costs on to the consumers. Who can a farm labourer pass his costs on to? NO ONE!
        WE TREAT ESSENTIAL SERVICE FOREIGN WORKERS LIKE SHIT, AND THEN KICK THEM WHILE THEY ARE DOWN! That makes us scum, because we allow it to happen!
        And don’t give me any bullshit about these people not being skilled workers. No Canadian can pick a field of tomatoes as skillfully or efficiently as wage-slave earners. Maybe they don’t pay to go to school to learn how to harvest crops, but their work experience is more valuable than a university degree.WHITE CAPITALISTS MAKE ME SICK.
        THE MIGRANT SYSTEM IS BASED ON SLAVERY. The only ones it really works for are the owners.

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        • AHEM. This post is about California migrant workers. However, I do think your last two sentences hold true in any country that uses these people as slave labor.

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          • I don’t do this to desrespect you or to be mean to you, Nan, but I cannot stick to one wrong when I see a larger wrong looming behind it. I refuse to remain silent. We have had similar discussions before, and the best I can offer is to not comment on your blog anymore if that is preferable to you.
            This does not mean we cannot remain friends, I have a lot of respect for you. And should we meet on my blog, or on others’ blogs, I see no reason to stop having these discussions. Your posts always inspire me, but I never know where your inspiration will take me. My mind goes where it goes. I will not censor it. I have already reached this understanding with other bloggers. I’m sure it will have to be done in the future.That is the way I participate.
            My apologies to you.

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          • It is NOT preferable.

            I appreciate every single person that takes the time and makes the effort to share their thoughts/comments on the subjects I write about.

            Perhaps it’s my own failing, but when I write a post about a certain subject, it’s because that subject is important to me. Naturally I hope others will add their perspectives — even if they disagree — related to the post topic.

            Having said that, I do realize that one thought can often lead to other thoughts and the conversations can quickly veer off-course. If they don’t go too far, I let them run their course. But sometimes I feel I must step in and bring things back into focus.

            I hope you understand.

            P.S. As an added note — as the conversation between you and tildeb has progressed, I do feel you both have offered some great perspectives related to the gist of this post. 🙂

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      • TILDEB: These workers often develop a lifestyle in migratory farm work that keeps their families whole and healthy and it is of great value to both parties. 

        rawgod: “These workers” are people, as are their families. How dare you insult them by calling them “These workers”!
        Moreover, you dare call “migratory farm work” a “lifestyle”!? Was slavery a “lifestyle”? That is what you are implying.
        Third, you tell me both parties benefit from this “lifestyle”? You benefitted from this lifestyle, but then, you were not a migratory farm worker. You were paid enough to pay for a university education, you said it yourself! That is a benefit. You no longer have to work as a “migrant farm worker (sic)”. How many true “migrant farm workers” get themselves a university education? You, sir, are a hypocrite! Their only education is as MFWs, coming back year-after-year, living one year to the next, kept in Scab Wage Perpetuity. The benefit belongs solely to the greedy farm owners. For everyone else it is an existence, not a life!

        TILDEB: Most of these guys spent a good portion on items to take home… usually on electronics, bicycles, and always toys for kids.

        rawgod: “these guys”! Another insult. These “guys” are people! You seem to have no idea of what a person is, these guys, these workers, LABELS designed to dehumanize them. Dehumanizing people is tantamount to bigotry, I call it racism, pure and simple. Sure, get on your high horse, you are not a racist. Think that all you want. I have no idea if you are a family man now, but I’m betting you are. You try going somewhere to work, away from your kids months at a time, earning these great wages of $5.50 CD per hour, and tell me you aren’t going to return home with nothing to give your wife and children. THAT IS NUMAN NATURE! Again you are dehumanizing “these guys”!
        On top of that, you dare to decide you can judge what they spend their money on? Who the hell are you to judge them. THAT IS NOT YOUR RIGHT! I don’t care who you are, what you believe, or if you believe nothing at all. Once earned, THAT MONEY BELONGS TO THEM, not to you. They want to spend it on alcohol, drugs, nice things for the people they love, or to get a university education, you ARE NOT ALLOWED TO JUDGE. Bullshit if you think you are.

        TILDEB: The living quarters were cramped but no worse than my time in the field with the military and with much, much better food.

        rawgod: Again, what gives you the right to compare your military experience to conditions as a MFW? When you signed your life over to the military, you signed it over lock, stock, and barrel. You gave them the right to do whatever they wanted with your so-called life. When a MFW signs on to work on a farm, he or she is not signing over their lives, but ONLY THEIR EARNING POWER. Their life still belongs to them.
        The food is really really good and high quality? Do they have to pay for it? I know they used to have to pay for it. The instant I turned from being a visiting family member to a “farm worker,” though I was not told this, I started being charged room and board. Granted, I still got to sleep in the guest room of the farmhouse, but suddenly I was no longer a guest, but a comsumer of food and space. I only worked two days, but I never saw a penny for my labour. Good if that has changed–but I doubt it. Besides, if the food wasn’t high quality, and nutritious, who would be able to eat shit and work ten hour shifts in horrendous conditions, and survive. Good food makes sense. Crowded living conditions does nothing for a person’s mental health. Does anyone care about an MFW’s mental health? I doubt it. The owner is not paying for a worker’s mind, only his or her body.

        TILDEB: Many returned to the same farm through several generations.

        rawgod: Does being an owner concerned for the welfare of their labourers while they are working for them make you a good employer? If they stiĺl have to come back to work for you generation after generation, it certainly does NOT. It is like holding a carrot on a stick in front of a donkey, and the donkey probably gets treated better than a human does.
        No, if all you are paying an MFW is enough to live on for one year, in conditions you have no idea what they are in your workers’ home nations, all you are doing is helping yourself to a permanent labour base, one that cannot break away from their poverty cycle back home.
        But you don’t have to worry about that anymore, do you Tildeb? You got what you wanted, and I assume you now live a pretty good LIFESTYLE. Like I said, you are a hypocrite. And that you are taking to the bank!

        One question, Tildeb, and I do hope you answer it honestly: It sounds like as a Farm Worker you had your own transportation. You certainly make it sound that way. Did you ever transport your fellow workers to or from a worksite FREE OF CHARGE? Remember, I am asking for an honest answer.

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        • Chill. I have family members who do the same kind of migratory work in several provinces and they really do create a lifestyle around it, from picking lowbush blueberries in the east, cranberries in the north, to peaches in the west to strawberries and apples in the south (well, what Canadians call south, meaning that bit of Ontario sticking into the Great lakes region). They work alongside many migrant farm workers but they also switch every few years with tree planting and camping rough (without any amenities whatsoever) and have been doing this for two generations now. All of this labour is very hard work but no different in principle – according to a brother-in-law – than working as he does the fishing boats on both open water coasts.

          I think you have an idea in your head about an abusive and exploitative system (used against darker skinned people who are its victims) and believe it to be true in all cases. My point is that it isn’t just this way against those people but a system of labour that does in fact work for all parties involved. As for cases of abuse, what I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to be this way with proper regulation and really is a large system across many industries that can and does work to the benefit of all, meaning workers in need of work and farms (and industries) in need of labour. It’s a mistake to assume the category of ‘migrant’ worker means abuse and victimhood and economic slavery. That’s simply not true. The abuse isn’t inherent in the system, which is what I think you presume and believe, but in unregulated and unenforced and often illegal practices.

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          • In some cases you may be correct, but I will never believe it is more the rule than the exception.
            Allow me to turn away from Migrant Farm Workers to Temporary Foreign Workers. People brought in from The Philipines , Indonesia, and other poor Pacific nations. From poor African nations.The people who peple our meat packing plants, our service industries, our garment industries. These people are good enough to work in Canada, for slave wag but they are not good enough to be granted citizenship. Why not? Because then they would have to be paid Canadin wages, and work under well-regulated Canadian workplace laws.)(Sorry, Nan, but here I have to switch to only discussing Canadian laws and practices, I know nothing about American laws and practices.) Both federal and provincial laws supposedly wrote great laws to protect them from employer abuse.
            Where I live in High Level, Alberta, look two hundred kilometre SOUTH of the NorthWest Territories border, where there are a number of reseves filled with. willing workers, why is there so much Canadian poverty, while over 1000 TFWs are working here legally, being paid a wage 1/3 (one third) of our provincial minimum wage laws?
            To be continued.

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        • Oh, as to your question about transportation. No, I couldn’t afford a car at the time and so, like all of the guys, we stayed on the farm except to walk down to the lake for a swim. That was about a 3K walk and we didn’t do this until our team could prime the day’s allotment before 3 PM… about 3 weeks in. I also had to miss the first 3 weeks of school to finish the harvest, then try to find lodgings, then try to catch up and get my assignments in. Like everyone else, I did it for the money and, like everyone else, benefited from having the work at a time when jobs were very hard to find. Not many people born and raised here are willing to do this work (and often know very little about it) but are seemingly able to make sweeping claims firm in their conviction that it’s all terrible. Well, it’s certainly hard work and not very lucrative and there is a lot of abuse that really does need public policy and legal enforcement. But it is necessary work and it would hurt a lot of people if the opportunity was removed by pricing labour beyond the willingness of you, the consumer, to buy its products.

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    • Yes, you’re correct. rawgod. I did not mention that these are primarily immigrants (although I did say so in my closing remarks). This omission is largely because those of us who live in the states are keenly aware that the agricultural industry survives on migrant workers (and because I often forget/overlook that I have readers in other countries).

      Nonetheless, my primary reason for writing the post was to point out the conditions many of these people must face in their efforts to provide for themselves and their families. Especially now considering the effects of the California fires. And how little regard people in general have for them.

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      • And, again, the exact same thing is true wherever a migrant worker comes from. This is NOT an American problem only, but pertains everywhere midrant workers exist to serve the needs and wants of others.

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  5. In this country these people are not allowed to be treated well. Many just can’t understand that.

    In a week I’m headed back to Mexico. I left the 22nd of March because of the White House threat of citizens possibly not being able to return to the States.

    I get treated so well there and we could learn so much from this country – but we won’t of course.

    I am not proud of this country not even a little bit at this time.

    The future looks grim and with the numbers saying 50-60% will NOT take a vaccine – Covid and death will remain prominent as wearing a mask isn’t going to happen either.

    I will take my chances elsewhere and eat taco’s in an attempt to find some peace from the total insanity here.

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        • If you like, plesse read my comment to Tildeb of about 45 minutes before this comment to you. And let me know if I did a good job of responding to him. I would be very inyerested in what you think.
          No, I have not come up with any real solutions yet, but hopefully better stating the problems can open some new doors. I don’t know if you have a WP site of your own, or even a website of your own, but feel free to copy and paste if you feel like it. Thanks.

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  6. My response to rawgod – him being Canadian and me with experience in the fields with migrant workers in Canada’s farm belt – was to point out that migrant workers can be and have been used for many generations to the benefit of both. There is always a risk of punishing those very people one is trying to help, in the sense of pricing their labour and access to jobs out of their reach and making it way more difficult for them to provide for their families. In other words, it doesn’t HAVE to be a terrible situation and abuse can garner both public outcry and regulatory correction rather than, say, a total ban or some other draconian (or perhaps should I say a Pavlovian) response. There is a middle way and there is a way to correct and help everyone concerned.

    The problem with implementing regulation is when it is painted broadly, and publicly accepted, as socialism and therefore bad when, in fact, proper regulation is like a necessary tide in that it raises all boats involved and can and does often level the tilted economic playing field. (Rawgod is probably unaware that a previous long time Prime Minister – Chretien – passed a law that no one and no business could donate more than $5000 to any political party or organization per year. That little gem has altered the country dramatically towards We the People than what is going on south of the border and is exactly what the US population needs to do to constrain the ridiculous influence of special interest groups has on all levels of government and who are the only ones who advocate for business as usual. That needs to change.)

    My preference in response to widespread economic abuse against migrant workers like those you show in California is to paint that situation as demonstrating the need for increased regulation and enforcement so that if any blame is to be assigned to having new regulations and enforcement falls squarely on those who abuse, who cut corners, who treat people as chattel, and not those who go along with working in terrible situations out of economic desperation… businesses that deserve blame from both within and without the industry for causing a problem. I think this is a very effective tactic as a public policy on various industries when they know abuse earns regulation and enforcement and who then are more likely to respond internally with better and quicker changes to revealed abuse in order – if employers are not particularly concerned with the health and welfare of real people in real life but simply seek the lowest possible economic cost – to avoid government regulators descending en masse and using heavy handed tactics on an entire targeted industry and having everyone involved in the industry then have to deal with and pay for increased costs for that new layer or layers of bureaucracy. This method has been very effective in all kinds of ways in Canada where a public official simply needs to say they will look into some abuse allegation and consider new regulations, while at the same time invite industry spokespeople to make presentations to the regulators on how THEY will fix the problem THEY have created BEFORE new regulation is introduced.

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    • OF COURSE there’s a need for better regulations! Or at the very least, some enforcement of those already on the books. But since the climate of this country leans toward helping the MORE fortunate rather than the LESS fortunate (especially those of color), these type of conditions won’t change anytime in the near future.

      I do see where you’re coming from. I tend to think the big difference between my perspective and yours in our various discussions is that I tend to see things from a more humanist viewpoint. I look at the people rather than the circumstances. I do realize the two often go hand-in-hand, but it seems to be my nature to view the world from a more subjective stance whereas you see things as black-and-white. NOT a criticism. Just an observation.

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      • Black and white? I see issues as problems and solutions.

        Problems are rarely just this thing or singular and insulated events; rather, they are usually the result of processes that need improvement. I find this framework incredibly helpful personally and professionally because I think people by and large really are trying to do the best they can and usually with good intentions. Lately, something important has shifted politically and socially and economically, with these same people paving the road to hell and all that jazz. (And I see the same method of faith-based belief powering pernicious results in these areas outside of religion and, as an atheist, subject to the same legitimate counter-arguments to point out why respecting evidence-based confidence a reliable alternative.)

        But very often the tools for problem solving are few and often unsuitable given the process in which they have encountered difficulty. In everything from parenting to teaching to Board work, from art to sports to entertainment, my experience is that by identifying where processes skew to unfavourable results (usually presented a ‘problem’), changing the process means changed results toward a solution will follow. This allows one to measure and compare results not of the individuals involved – who as I said are usually of good intentions and caring – but a way to see how the process can be made better. Show me a class where student failure is widespread and I will show you a process of instruction that isn’t working! Change the process, change the results. This approach changes a situation from an Us and Them framing to a We, to a team, to an all-on-the-same-side kind of framing and one where it’s then much easier to get people all headed in the same direction AND owning their part in the success. It empowering.

        I have found almost nothing but success doing this in real life… and often with dramatic improvements for the individuals involved, from working with convicts and the illiterate to counseling suicidal students and end-of-the-rope parents, from altering business and charity by-laws and policies to elevating sports and music groups to produce outstanding results… results that they – not me – own. Change is necessary to solve ongoing problems but making the changes that are necessary to the processes requires consensus, requires teamwork, requires what coaches call ‘buying into a philosophy’ and so I’m always trying to get to that point of shared understanding of how to approach this difficult task of procedural change. Blaming and complaining solves nothing; understanding problems is the only thing that leads to solutions and my preference is to understand problems as a result of a process in need of improvement.

        In the written format, this intention of mine often appears as critical and harsh to the individuals who wish to keep to a certain framing that I think – at best – undermines any potential of changing the processes together, a framework and/or philosophy that stops any chance of finding one that leads to lasting and workable and supportable solutions by everyone involved, what they call all the ‘stakeholders’. For that lack of ability and harshness to communicate clearly, the fault rests with me. And that’s okay because doing better in these regards is itself a process. I just can’t get it down to 140 characters.

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