FOLIO WEEKLY

Jacksonville, Florida

April 6, 2004

DOWN ON THE FARM

Allegations of abuse and labor violations hit Hastings’ most prominent farmer

by Hamilton Nolan

When the morning sun pours through the arching live oaks and the Spanish moss sways in the breeze, Hastings seems like the kind of town you wouldn’t mind retiring in, just to set up a hammock and savor the serenity of rural America.  Linger over breakfast at the Huddle House, go to church on Sunday, grow a vegetable garden.  It’s a pleasant anachronism, a place that seems like it hasn’t changed in a hundred years.

In many ways, it hasn’t.  The tiny town in the southwestern corner of St. Johns County still boasts of its status as “Florida’s Potato Capital,” its furrowed fields blanketing the landscape in all directions.  Traveling C.R. 207 from St. Augustine, even smaller towns dot the crossroads along the way:  Vermont Heights, where each street is named for a different state; Armstrong, a single road of concrete-block houses and mobile homes with satellite dishes; Spuds, named for the area’s cash crop; and Elkton, whose existence owes much to a single federal building, the cube-shaped post office.  The most conspicuous structure along the way is a gleaming juvenile prison facility, the result of a dubious effort by local politicians to infuse jobs into the area.

Much of Hastings’ once-vibrant downtown burned to the ground in the 1980’s, and new businesses have been slow to arrive.  A yellow-and-red Kangaroo gas station dominates Main Street, and old men shuffle in and out --- one sporting a knife on his belt and a 1940’s-vintage lye-straightened conk hairstyle, and another in an orange trucker hat and yellow sunglasses, poised at the border between country fashion and funkadelic.  Across the street is the Dollar General (“The Town’s Most Unusual Store”) and the First Baptist Church, whose sign proffers today’s lesson for the faithful:  “Know Right, No Wrong.”

But beneath the small time patina of the familiar and solid, there is a residue of dirt and blood, which in many ways is the town’s foundation.  Hastings is a relic of the Old South, where right and wrong intertwine in ways that make discerning them a matter of perspective.  Crops don’t pick themselves, and the town has always depended on cheap labor to keep the wheels of agriculture turning.

This labor force has long been a source of conflict.  The poor, mostly black workers that perform the backbreaking work of cutting cabbage and sorting potatoes do so for minimum wage in grim working conditions.  Some are driven to work in the fields by financial need and a lack of employment alternatives.  Others are victims of institutionalized coercion --- or worse.

It has become difficult for farm owners to find field workers in recent years as an increasingly educated and mobile population looks to less physically demanding sources of income.  An air-conditioned $5.15 an hour at the Huddle House or the juvie center looks a lot better than the same sum for a day spent in the furrows.

In order to supplement the work force, farms employ “labor recruiters” --- men tasked with finding and hiring field hands.  Often, recruiters target homeless and drug-addicted men, picked up off the street or at shelters in and around Jacksonville.  Lured by the promise of money or drugs and brought to Hastings to toil in the fields and packing houses, these men find themselves in virtual bondage, their lives controlled by crew bosses who house them, pay them and monitor their every move.

The unsettling nature of the farm labor system has been an open secret for many years.  Worker advocates, politicians and agriculture interests have jostled over the issue of reform, but fundamental change has been slow in coming, perhaps because the system “works” in the sense that the crops get harvested cheaply.  But a lawsuit filed recently in federal court in Jacksonville against Hastings’ most prominent farm seeks to bring accountability into the labor process and set an expensive example for all farm owners.

The suit, filed by Florida Rural Legal Services attorney Lisa Butler on behalf of 12 migrant farm workers, alleges serious labor law violations at Bulls-Hit Ranch and Farm in Hastings.  The farm, made regionally famous by the popular Bulls Chips brand of potato chips, is accused of creating an environment ripe for abuse and ignoring violations of workers’ basic rights.

According to the suit, Bulls-Hit Farm owner Tommy Lee and his former labor contractor Ronald “Too Tall” Jones “routinely paid [workers] little or no wages for their labor” and “systematically deprived [them] of their earnings through illegal credits claimed against their wages.”  The practice of claiming “illegal credits” included charging workers “100 percent interest on wage advances” and deducting rent for substandard housing.

In addition to money swindles, the suit alleges that Jones was abusive and violent.  The plaintiffs claim he beat up two workers --- a man and a woman who complained about conditions --- and committed numerous violations of both the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act and Fair Labor Standards Act, which dictate safety standards and are designed to protect workers from abuse.

The suit, which is expected to go to trial this year, seeks unpaid wages and damages.  The case will add fuel to the incendiary issue of Florida farm workers.  Already the subject of boycotts against Taco Bell and Mt. Olive Pickles, student protests at college campuses around the state and unflattering profiles in the New Yorker and the Miami Herald, the Florida farm is getting hit from all sides.  Although much of the attack has focused on farms in Immokalee and Belle Glade, the suit against Bulls-Hit Farms proves that Northeast Florida is no longer immune.  Indeed, if the lawsuit is successful, it could change the landscape of Northeast Florida agriculture forever.

Bulls-Hit Farm is a series of low-slung red and blue buildings straddling the Putnam-St. Johns County line.  Leafy green expanses of young potato plants stretch almost to the horizon, part of 750 acres that Tommy Lee farms.

The Bulls-Chip factory is also here, the region’s only local potato chip processing plant, as well as a museum of agricultural artifacts.  The attractions, coupled with a steady stream of tourists and school groups, and a PR effort that includes extensive media coverage and a Bulls-Hit Website, has made Lee something of a local celebrity.

Tommy Lee is a graying, pink-jowled bear of a man with a deep, languid Southern accent.  His daily uniform is a pair of shorts and a monogrammed khaki shirt, set off by large yellow-lensed glasses.  Lee was born and raised in Hastings, one of eight children with an alcoholic father who left when he was young.  “We was a poor family, and I’m proud of that,” he says.  Along with his siblings, Lee worked on farms to support the family, often from early morning to late evening --- a schedule that hurt him academically.  “A lotta times I would sleep through school,” he recalls.  After graduation, with the help of his stepfather, Lee managed to acquire his own land.  To him, farming seemed a foregone conclusion.  “I had to make my living somehow or another,” he says.

Bulls-Hit is an impressive family operation.  Lee owns about 1,200 acres in all, and though profits have been uneven (he says he’s “been a millionaire a couple of times and a poor son of a gun a buncha times”) the farm is a success.  Lee and son Tater each own houses on the property, as well as a cabin with two lakes full of fish.  Lee muses about building a nine-hole golf course where he can wile away his golden years.  His pickup truck is red, shiny and large.

All of Tommy Lee’s possessions sprouted from the humble potato.  Although he blames the “dadburn diets” of carb-cutter Dr. Atkins for a recent decline in the potato’s popularity, he offers a simple recipe for success:  “People are gonna need to keep eating.”

Potato farming is labor intensive but highly mechanized.  Seed potatoes are shipped from up north and unloaded into storage bins, then scooped out, cut to size, dusted with fungicide, planted, grown, lifted from the soil and washed --- all mechanically.  Bulls-Hit potatoes aren’t touched by human hands until after they’ve been harvested.  Still, workers must sort, grade and pack the final product.  “It takes a lot of workers,” Lee says.  “It takes about 45 people to run our packing house.”

During potato season, from mid-April to mid-June, Lee, like most Hastings farmers, relies on a labor contractor to bring him a crew of workers.  He pays the contractor (or “crew boss”) based on the weight of the potatoes processed.  The crew boss, in turn, is responsible for hiring, housing, feeding and paying the crew.   Aside from being a convenient arrangement for farmers, the contractor system ensures that there is a legal buffer between them and the sometimes dirty business of securing farm labor.

“Back in the old days, it was regular migrant workers that did this on the farms,” explains Lee.  “But nowadays, what your problem is, is you got a lotta druggies, homeless people, and that makes it sad.  Meks it bad.   They’re mentally messed up.”

Lee bemoans the gradual decline of black migrant labor crews in Hastings.  He prefers to hire local workers, but admits his crew bosses don’t always do that.  After dropping one contractor a couple of years ago, he says, “I hired this other boy [“Too Tall” Jones] that was supposed to use the local help.  He started out using the local help … [but] last year he started getting them outta these soup kitchens and off the street, so I let him go.”

He didn’t let him go soon enough to avoid getting sued.  In fact, the lawsuit alleges serious labor violations for both years that Jones worked for Lee.  According to the complaint, Jones issued wage statements to workers that “routinely underrepresented the wages actually paid” and failed to itemize the credits claimed against the wages for interest, rent or meals.  In other words, a pay stub might indicate that a worker received a full 40 hours worth of pay, when in fact the employee got as little as $30 or $40.

Lee acknowledges that he’s ultimately responsible for Jones’ pay practices, but insists he tried to supervise payroll.  “By law, we stay straight with it,” he says, checking the contractor’s license, insurance and payroll slips.

Field workers are paid minimum wage, a rough deal even if they are paid promptly and correctly.  The gloomy prospect of making $5.15 an hour for 12-hour days spent grading potatoes is one reason locals seek out different work, leaving the job to society’s most desperate.  But Lee believes that farm work offers a kind of salvation.  “A lot of these people that you pick off the street, migrants, cannot take care of themselves,” he reasons.  “And if they got money in their pocket, they’re not gonna stop drinking or doping till they get it all used up.”

“This caliber of people [are] just damn sure not capable of keeping care of themself, washing their clothes and feeding theirself and looking after,” Lee continues.  “A lotta the crew leaders just tend to ‘em.  They’re the mama and daddies, you might say.”

A 2003 Miami Herald series on Florida farm labor focused in part on Bulls-Hit’s labor practices and included some unflattering depictions of the place.  One of the housing camps was labeled “unsafe for human occupancy,” and plaintiff farm worker Isiah Brown compared his time at the camp to bondage.  “I felt like [I was] being a slave, just working to support his family,” he says.  The series also quoted Lee calling some of his workers “not much more than a damn animal.”

Such attitudes are regrettably common, according to Florida Rural Legal Services attorney Lisa Butler.  Although she declined to comment specifically on the case, she says worker mistreatment is a money issue.  “There is an economic reason why farm workers’ conditions continue to be deplorable,” she says.  “[Everyone] wants to pass the cost down the line --- and laborers are at the end of the line.”

Lee says the current controversy has caused him a great deal of “heartache,” but he doesn’t challenge the essential claim of the suit when it comes to Jones’ treatment of the workers.  “He B.S.’ed them outta their money and stuff, and caused me to get in a lotta trouble,” says Lee.  “Then he goes to, you know, beating them outta their money and what have you.”

Whether Lee’s admission will cost him in court is up to U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan to decide.  Tommy Lee, meanwhile, is weighing the benefits of switching to a Mexican labor crew.  “Years and years ago I used Mexican crews and they work harder, but I don’t like to work somebody I don’t understand,” he says.  “I’d rather stick with my hometown people.”

Home, for the 20 or so Mexican men who live there, is a long, windowless concrete-block building surrounding a dusty courtyard.  Half the building is boarded up, but otherwise indistinguishable from the inhabited side.  An old yellow school bus --- crew bosses’ preferred form of transportation --- is parked in the dirt.  The men, ranging in age from early 20s to mid-40s, wander into the muggy dining room area and sit at wooden picnic tables, one of which is piled with crates of tortillas purchased on the crews’ semi-regular trip to Wal-Mart.  They gamely peruse books titled “Ingles en 10 Minutos al Dia,” courtesy of a local charity group.  The workbook teaches exchanges like “What is that?  That is a salad.  I would like that,” but it’s clear everyone here has a long way to go before becoming bilingual.

One slim, earnest young man confides that his friend has just been arrested and asks what to do.  He receives halting advice to go to la libra de telefono, look up “St. Johns County Jail” to find out his bail and then get in touch with a bail bondsman.  The conversation takes 10 minutes, including extended pantomimes.  Asked about the exchange later, one of the volunteers thinks about it for a minute, then shrugs.  “Probably, he’s already been deported.”

Mexican migrant workers are increasingly popular among some farmers for their “work ethic.”  This classification refers to their willingness to accept low wages and their willingness to keep quiet, though these attributes likely have more to do with circumstance than demeanor.

“Ray,” a longtime Hastings resident who asked not to be identified, worked for Tommy Lee at Bulls-Hit.  He spent years observing the farm labor system and believes that low wages, poor education and worker exploitation are a necessary part of the agricultural economy.   “It’s all based on economics,” he says.  “It’s based on keeping a cheap labor pool out there.”

Ray graduated from Hastings High School, which was shut down in the wake of the forced integration of the late 1960s when many local whites refused to send their children there.  An alumni association was formed to save the school building, which now houses the offices of the city of Hastings.  Because the school was all white, the association is as well.  “They always figure out these little ways to keep everything white,” Ray observes.  “Absolutely nothing has changed from 1965 or 1970 to now.  It’s still the same structure … It’s a slave mentality of master and boss.”

In those days, Ray recalls, St. Johns County was a top-down organization run by notorious Sheriff L.O. Davis, who collaborated with the KKK during the Civil Rights movement (leading Martin Luther King, Jr. to call St. Augustine “the most lawless city I have ever seen.”)  He wrote the laws, he interpreted the laws, he enforced the laws however he wanted,” Ray says.  Hastings was a stronghold for L.O. Davis, “and all these current farmers were part of the environment.  They grew up in what they felt was a protected environment, and they’re just still stuck in a lotta old shit.”

Ray worked with Ronald Jones at Bulls-Hit, and although he never witnessed abusive behavior, it was clear that exploitation was part of his MO.  Ray estimates that half of the men on Jones’ crew last year were “crackheads,” and says Jones exploited their poverty and drug dependency, lending money and selling food at 100 percent interest.  Some workers quickly found the majority of their paycheck going to repay the loans.  “The people that he housed and transported, most of those were in a pretty indentured situation,” says Ray.  “They were dependent on that daily thing of him feeding them and him giving them money for cigarettes or drugs or whatever.”

Indeed, Ray says drugs are used to control the most vulnerable workers.  A crew boss may not handle drugs, but he ensures that they are available.  “He’s seeing that employee has access to it, you can believe that,” says Ray.  “You can believe that the dopeman is coming around the corner after the contractor drops off the help at the labor camp.”

Ray challenges any farmer that claims to care about his employees.  “They don’t give a shit, as long as somebody picks that rotten potato off that conveyor belt.  And if he don’t wanna do it, then somebody else will for the same price.”

While Lisa Butler tackles farm labor abuses in court, Thomas Cave takes a less confrontational approach.  Pastor of the Lord’s Temple church in Hastings, Cave runs a feeding program that serves about 500 meals a week to locals and migrant workers.  Although the farm workers he helps come from different backgrounds, he believes they share similar experiences.  “They end up in a city like Jacksonville,” Cave says, “and they find themselves in very precarious positions … You’re dealing with people not who are just less fortunate physically, but who are broken mentally.”

Volunteers from the St. Francis House homeless shelter in St. Augustine bring 400 sandwiches a day to workers in Hastings during harvest season.  Like Cave, St. Francis House director Tammy Byrer thinks the system capitalizes on misfortune.  “It is inhuman that we would have that kind of poverty and exploitation in such a beautiful community,” she says.  Because the shelter is a prime recruitment target, Byrer says they “strongly police against” the presence of crew bosses.  But she realizes their tactics are powerful.  She knows one ex-farm worker from Central Florida who was paid in crack instead of money.

After the Miami Herald series appeared, particularly the parts about Ronald Jones, Byrer says, “My blood pressure boils when I think of that man … Contributing to the addiction of people is not helping anyone.”

Public outrage over the farm labor system tends to rise with media coverage, then gradually settle back down to forgettable levels.  Meanwhile, the potatoes will be pulled out of the ground in a few weeks, and workers will be needed to fill the bags and pick the rejects off the line.  Tommy Lee speculates that he may have to open his own labor camp one day soon to keep his costs down.

“I wanna get by as cheap as I can with the least aggravation I can,” he says.  Nothing wrong with that.  As he wheels his truck behind the Bull Chips factory, he nods through the window to a middle-aged black man carrying equipment.  “This is one of our older boys here,” Lee says as he turns the corner.  “Just ‘yessir, no sir.’ He’s just a good boy.”