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NAPLES DAILY NEWS
Immokalee farmworkers have Congress’ attention
By KATY BISHOP
The stories don’t add up.
Federal lawmakers cast a spotlight on Immokalee farmworkers on Tuesday,
and after hearing conflicting testimony, they called for a federal wage
audit and more government oversight of working conditions.
At the hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S. Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.,
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio and Assistant Senate
Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill., expressed concern about farmworkers’
living and working conditions, in Immokalee and across the country.
“In America today we are seeing a race to the bottom, the middle class
is collapsing, poverty is increasing,” said Sanders, who visited
Immokalee in January and called for the hearing. “What I saw in
Immokalee is the bottom in the race to the bottom.”
Wages, hours and work
According to growers, tomato harvesters in Florida are paid an average
of $12.46 per hour, but that number came under fire at Tuesday’s
hearing.
“Realistically, it’s impossible,” said Lucas Benitez, Coalition of
Immokalee Workers co-founder and former tomato picker, in Spanish.
Workers are paid about 45 cents a bucket for 32-pound buckets of
tomatoes, Benitez said. To earn $12.46 per hour, they would have to fill
a bucket, hump it to the truck and empty it nearly every two minutes, he
added.
Workers often wait for hours for the dew to dry before picking or may be
sent home at any time due to weather, Benitez added. During those
non-picking work hours they are paid less than $12.46 per hour or
nothing at all, he said.
Roy Reyna, a former tomato picker who now manages Grainger Farms in
Immokalee, testified that his employees are satisfied with their wages
and work conditions.
“Without satisfied workers no one would pick our tomatoes and our farm
would be out of business,” Reyna said.
Reggie Brown, vice president of the Maitland-based Florida Tomato
Growers Exchange, agreed, citing the thousands of workers who return to
Florida’s tomato fields each year. He also mentioned that earning an
average of $12.46 means that farmworkers make more than double the $5.85
federal minimum wage.
“We are in fact paying fair wages and we’re treating our workers
fairly,” Brown said.
But Immokalee workers and advocates disputed the growers’ claim that
workers earn an average of $12.46 per hour, said Mary Bauer, director of
the Immigrant Justice Project for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern
Poverty Law Center. She also cited recurring problems with workers not
being paid during waiting time and pay stubs that don’t reflect the
actual number of hours worked.
Sanders, who led the hearing, asked Bauer how easy it is for employers
to falsify wage and hour records.
“Very easy,” she replied.
A penny per pound
The hearing came as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers continues its
campaign to persuade fast-food companies to pay an extra penny per pound
for tomatoes and to pass the benefit along to farmworkers.
The workers’ group forged penny-per-pound agreements with McDonalds and
Yum! Brands, and is now targeting Burger King.
But then, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange balked.
“After the Immokalee workers began receiving the extra pay, the Florida
Tomato Growers Exchange rose up and threatened its members with $100,000
fines if they continued to do it, citing unspecified legal concerns,”
said Kennedy in his opening remarks. “...By meeting today I hope we can
ensure that the Immokalee workers will receive the extra penny per pound
they deserve.”
Growers believe the penny-per-pound program includes potential
anti-trust law violations and may also expose them to federal fraud
charges, Brown said.
“The Florida Tomato Growers Exchange does not object to the penny a
pound being paid by McDonald’s or Yum Brands, we simply do not want to
participate in the distribution,” he said.
Sanders responded by citing letters from Yum Brands and McDonald’s that
denied the validity of the growers’ legal concerns, as well as a letter
signed by 26 law professors and the legal opinions of two law firms.
“The only real anti-trust concern would arise if several growers agree
among themselves to not participate in the CIW Yum or CIW McDonalds
program,” the law professors’ letter said.
“...Mr. Brown, do you really expect the committee to believe that the
attorneys at Yum ...and McDonald’s, 26 law professors and two highly
regarded law firms are wrong and you are right?” Sanders asked.
“Our legal opinion is different,” Brown replied.
Human trafficking
When workers are forced by violence or threats to work without pay, or
are trapped in debt servitude, it becomes human trafficking, said
Detective Charlie Frost, who is an investigator for the Collier
Sheriff’s Office anti-trafficking unit, during his testimony.
“Traffickers are usually subcontractors of larger corporations,” Frost
said. “This system allows the larger corporation to remain willfully
blind of any abuses occurring and minimize liability.”
Without a change in federal or state law, it is hard to prosecute those
larger corporations, Frost said.
Should the government “change the law to hold growers accountable?,”
Sanders asked.
“Yes,” Frost said.
Sanders questioned Brown and Reyna about their experience with human
trafficking, asking why growers and farm managers don’t report more
cases of abuse. Both men denied seeing human trafficking first-hand, and
emphasized their shock at recent cases in Immokalee.
“We’re on the same side of the issue,” Brown said. “We are as opposed to
slavery as you are.”
Looking forward
In his closing remarks, Sanders called for “changes to the federal
trafficking statues to address the problem of growers and others who are
avoiding prosecution by remaining willfully blind to the abuses around
them.”
He also suggested that lawmakers audit of grower wage and hour records,
examine the anti-trust implications of the Florida tomato growers’
activities and expand the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National
Labor Relations Act to include agricultural workers.
Sanders ended by saying: “We need to make sure that slavery, servitude
and other abuses in the Florida tomato industry continue to receive the
attention both in and outside Congress that they deserve so that it is
stopped once and for all.”
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