There is no shortage of workers; only a shortage of justice," read a poster at a farm worker rally near Orlando, Florida, last November. It was Thanksgiving Day, and Florida Gov. Bob Martinez had proclaimed "Farm Workers Week" as a time of public gratitude to the hands that grow our food. But the farm workers, who can't afford to give their families a festive dinner and have no paid holidays, declined the honor and decided instead to hold a protest for decent wages and working conditions.
Members of the Central Florida farm workers association were protesting the attempts of agribusiness to bring in foreign temporary workers under contract in spite of an oversupply of labor in the fields. Citrus growers, claiming a labor scarcity, had petitioned for "H-2A workers," who come to the United States under a U. S. government-certified contract, to work for one employer for one season and then return home.
A month later, on Christmas Day, tempera-tures throughout most of Florida plummeted to sub-freezing levels, where they stayed for three days. All crops were hurt to some degree, from the vegetable fields in the southern part of the state to the citrus belt in the center, and the valuable fern beds in north-central Volusia County.
The Florida agricultural industry, worth $6 billion annually, lost $1.1 billion-income that most growers will recover, in part through higher prices passed on to consum-ers. But for the workers, the loss in wages amounted to $176 million in one season, ac-cording to figures provided by the National Farmworker Ministry. Close to 90,000 Florida farm workers lost their jobs due to the freeze.
For most of the 200,000 farm workers in the state, however, the freeze was just one tragic event in a larger and more permanent disaster--a daily life characterized by eviction notices, lack of health care, and hunger.
Marshall Barry, an economist with Florida International University, has produced empirical data confirming the injustice faced by farm workers. In a comprehensive study released last November by the university's Center for Labor Research, Barry points to the erosion of farm workers' wages; the apparent siding of government authorities with grow-ers' interests; the formation of an excess supply of farm labor in the state; the high profitability of Florida agriculture; and the fact that the new, cheaper, immigrant labor force has displaced native workers. "While the real income of farm workers dropped by 13.3 percent statewide between 1982 and 1986, the real increase in net income to grow-ers was 21.4 percent," says Barry.
The issue of displacement is touchy. With too many workers--"four hands reaching for the same orange," as Barry puts it--ethnic groups can be pitted against each other. Yet all farm worker leaders agree that the problem is not the cheaper worker, but the exploiting employer. The best organizing projects cut across racial and national lines.
MORE AND MORE FARM WORKERS understand the macroeconomics of their situation. Maria Valdez is a U. S. citizen from Texas. Now in her 30s, she has been a migrant in the fields since she was a child. "I used to think that we never had any luck, that we did not do well because we didn't have any schooling. Now I am old enough to see that our poverty is the result of the greed of agriculture," she explains. Like Maria, many immigrant farm workers are seeing parallels between the poverty or persecution they left in Mexico, Haiti, or Guatemala, and the oppression they suffer in exile.
The Montafios, an extended family of eight, rent a two-bedroom house in Immokalee. Every morning before dawn, the adults walk to the edge of the road, by a grocery store, where buses pick up workers and drive them to the fields. Since the freeze, it has been difficult to work a full day. Often only the men get chosen.
Elisa, who came from Mexico after her husband had acquired a temporary residence card as a Special Agricultural Worker (SAW), seldom gets to work. She reported to the immigration authorities and received a piece of paper that identifies her as a possible candidate for a Replenishment Agricultural Worker (RAW) slot--if and when such a program is instituted.
The replenishment program, created by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), is to be implemented once the U.S. Departments of Labor and Agriculture jointly determine that a significant number of special agricultural workers have moved out of agricultural work. It is because of RAW, as well as other provisions of IRCA, including SAW and H-2A, that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the immigration law "a growers' labor law."
Since most days she can't work in the fields, Elisa is a housekeeper for the family. "I wash and mend clothes, shop for food, cook meals. I can't be idle, " she said apologetically as she made corn tortillas, skill-fully flattening dough between her clapping hands.
The extended household shares resources, accommodating everyone's needs. Unfortunately, this mutual reliance works in favor of growers by lending maximum flexibility to the labor force. When work is scarce, the fittest workers are selected for a few hours of intense productivity. Then they stretch their meager wages for the family to survive, while other family members free the workers from other tasks. Meanwhile, the labor reserve--mostly women, in this case--is maintained in readiness at the workers' own cost.
In January, as the temperature rose, the danger of fruit rotting on the trees created the need for a swift harvest. Immediately growers had as many workers as they needed, some of them having traveled with their families from South Dade, where the withered vegetable fields had to be cleared and rested before replanting. The industry did not have to adjust wages to attract these workers. The reserve is hungry for work and virtually inexhaustible.
WHILE FEDERAL AND STATE authorities received public praise for their willingness to make assistance available to unemployed farm workers following the freeze, critics charged that service providers had no experience in reaching the population they intended to help. And an enormously complicated maze of requirements for eligibility for different programs tended to discourage many applicants. Some, like Pedro Salgado, from Auburndale, saw the difficulties as a cover-up for unwillingness to give assistance.
"They have told me to go to a different location twice," says Salgado. "But when I arrive there, they tell me that I am in the wrong place. Better to save gasoline in case we find some work!" Pedro and three friends share a small trailer home. At the end of February, they together had a total of $50 and no prospects for employment.
Immigration status plays an important role in eligibility for federal assistance. According to Karen Woodall, director of the ecumenical advocacy group Florida Impact, "A very large percentage of SAW cases have not been resolved. This means that all people have is a working permit. They do not qualify for any form of disaster aid, only regular unemployment benefits."
In Apopka, north of Orlando, the Navarro family went to the farm worker center for help. The husband has a SAW card; the wife is undocumented. Her pay has been added to her husband's check, so there is no official record of her existence. Because of the intermittent nature of farm labor, neither of them has worked the minimum number of weeks to qualify for unemployment benefits.
Sister Anne Kendrick, a farm worker advocate, took the papers of several families in similar situations to the nearest federal Disaster Aid Center (DAC), some 40 miles away, to appeal the "non-qualifying" verdict. At the center, the DAC officer ultimately agreed with Kendrick on every count.
Dona Imelda is a matriarch of biblical stature. She presides over a farm worker family of sons and daughters-in-law, including a Polish woman from Michigan who speaks the rich Spanish of a Mexican peasant. Holding her grandson while sitting on a rolled piece of carpet, Imelda explains that her family will not apply for aid. She and Don Raul prefer to tough it out and show the immigration authorities that "we did not come to this country for a free ride, but to work." "This is a hard time," she says, "but I have seen worse."
In Homestead, idle farm workers from a labor camp who have formed an "emergency committee" remember the cooperation they received after the freeze from the Baptist Mission in Winter Haven, whose pastor is an international disaster expert. They all recall the strong presence of the National Farmworker Ministry, and the hot meals cooked by farm workers. But they're now looking ahead, beyond the disaster, to the future availability of jobs.
Most of the farm workers who live in Florida--the home base of the eastern migrant farm worker stream--from October to May are now going to North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, or the Midwest. But for many, there will be no jobs when they return in November; small citrus growers, discouraged by the third killer freeze in a decade, may sell their land to developers.
In other cases, replanted groves will have to wait a couple of years before a harvest. Individual and corporate growers, such as fern farmers who supply florists, are looking to Costa Rica and Belize as new frontiers in the globalization of U.S. agriculture. Meanwhile, the local churches and the steadfast organizing projects that refuse to lose hope in the face of an uphill struggle continue to make a difference, while the farm workers themselves struggle for their own liberation.
The extreme plight of the 200,000 farm workers in Florida after the freeze has prompted no national religious delegation, no congressional scrutiny or federal studies, nor any significant notice by the national media. But Florida farm workers remain steadfast in their belief that the prophet Isaiah was right: God's people will not plant for others to eat, but will enjoy the fruit of their labor. "They will not toil in vain."
Aurora Camacho de Schmidt, a Mexican citizen, was a staff writer for the American Friends Service Committee when this article appeared.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!