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KMPH-TV (Fresno, California)
December 3, 2009
Valley Farmworkers Fighting for Better Pay are Let Go Again
By Norma Yuriar
An attorney for the workers say some employees were paid less than $2.00
per hour for tying and pruning grapevines at H&R Gunlund Ranches Inc. in
Caruthers.
"We had people making as little as $80 for 50 hours of work, there were
people making more than that — but everyone was well below the minimum
wage of $8.00 an hour and those were the checks they got last week,"
CRLA Attorney Silas Shawver said.
Andres Ramirez, a 45–year old farmworker says he was paid $106 for about
36 hours of work, which breaks down to less than $3.00 per hour.
California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) filed a complaint with the
State Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) on behalf of Ramirez and
more than 50 other farmworkers.
"Legally they can't be terminated for getting together and seeking an
improvement in their working conditions which is what they did," Shawver
said.
The group claims H&R Gunlund Ranches Inc. fired them on November 23rd
for complaining about a decrease in pay.
The workers had been getting paid 26–cents for every grapevine they
pruned and tied. The piece rate was cut to 20–cents per vine,
workers said.
In a surprise move the grower rehired Ramirez and the rest of the
workers this week with the promise of more money. H&R Gunlund
Ranches Inc. issued lays offs two days later.
"I don't know what happened," Ramirez said. "I think they are
laughing at us. We didn't do a bad job and then they said that was
it for us. I think it would have been better if they didn't give
us our job back because they are just humiliating us."
The ALRB is reviewing charges of retaliation and termination for
requesting a wage increase.
"There a lot of workers who end up working for less than minimum wage
based on these piece rates, what's less common is for people to actually
decide to stop working and do something about it," Shawver said.
The ALRB has the authority to order the company to rehire the workers –
but only if they find the Caruthers based grower was in violation,
that's still under investigation.
KMPH News has made repeated attempts to contact H&R Gunlund Ranches
Inc., our calls have not been returned.
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