|
May 11, 2008
Harvest interrupted when workers discovered camping in orchard
SHAFTER ---- The cherry harvest lurched to a stop Friday morning west of
Shafter after the United Farm Workers said men, women and teenagers were
camping in the orchards where they work.
The labor union learned more than 100 fruit pickers were bathing in
drainage ditches and sleeping outdoors Thursday northwest of Lerdo
Highway and Jumper Avenue, Delano organizer Armando Elenes said. Many
traveled from Wenatchee, Wash., at the request of a company they had
worked for in the past, Stemilt Growers Inc., he said.
“The company foreman even gave them a card with instructions on how to
get here from Washington,” Elenes said.
Some workers were told they would have housing, or would be allowed to
sleep in the orchard, he said.
A spokesman for the privately held fruit growing and packing company
denied Stemilt paid wages for the workers or otherwise held
responsibility for their housing.
“Stemilt has no connection with the orchard at all,” Washington-based
spokesman Roger Pepperl said.
But Kern County property records show the land where rows of cherry
trees grow is owned by a limited liability company formed by Kyle D.
Mathison, a Stemilt owner and partner.
Neither state, federal nor local agencies claimed much responsibility
for monitoring the situation. County Environmental Health Services sent
investigators.
Workers were camping in an adjacent almond orchard owned by another
farmer, but had left or were packing up Friday morning, said
environmental health division chief Guy Shaw.
About 60 pickers who had gathered beneath a shade tree in the cherry
orchard’s center around 11 a.m. shouted they wanted to return to work in
peace.
“See these hands?” asked Jesus Romero, 42, as he held his battered skin
out for inspection. “It means a good worker.”
He can earn around $120 a day picking cherries by hand, he said.
Romero arrived Monday, along with his cousin, Juan Manuel Romero, 42,
from Washington, they said.
“We have water, everything here,” Juan Manuel Romero said in Spanish.
“We want to stay here. We don’t have money to rent an apartment.”
The UFW wanted Stemilt to provide adequate housing for the workers, but
said the company kicked the workers off the land instead, Elenes said.
The union was working to find housing for them.
They also filed notice with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to
get access to the workers during their breaks, agency spokeswoman
Pauline Alvarez said from Visalia.
Many workers in the orchard told UFW officials they had legal papers to
reside and work in the country, Elenes said.
Whether they had permission to sleep there is less clear.
“I don’t know if anyone told (workers) they could stay (in the
orchard),” Shaw, the environmental health official, said.
Environmental health regulates employee housing, but this situation
didn’t fit the bill, he said. An orchard representative showed
environmental health inspectors contracts stating no housing was to be
provided to workers, he said.
Few farmers do.
Just 13 of the 104 permitted, employer-sponsored labor camps that dotted
the county in the ’70s and early ’80s remain, Shaw said.
“The farmers just said, look, it’s way too expensive, we can’t afford to
do this,” he said.
Three cruisers from the Sheriff’s Department circled the fruit trees
Friday, responding to a call from a project manager concerned about
angry workers, Senior Deputy Don Wiggins said.
The deputies found no trouble.
The Romero cousins just wanted to return to work Monday.
“Pure work,” Juan Manuel Romero said. |