Press Room

Washington State Berry Farm Seeks to Displace Domestic Workers with Foreign Workers

Lawyers and advocates for farmworkers have asked the U.S. Department of Labor to block a large Washington state berry producer from displacing hundreds of domestic workers with foreign guest workers brought in under the federal government’s temporary foreign agricultural worker program, known as the “H-2A” program. H-2A workers are vulnerable to abusive employer practices and fearful of challenging unfair or illegal conduct because they hold only a temporary visa to work for a single employer and return home at the end of the season with no promise of being hired in a future year.

Sakuma Brothers Farms, located an hour north of Seattle in Burlington, WA is a major employer of migrant and seasonal berry harvest workers and supplies fruit to the gourmet ice cream maker, Haagen-Dazs. Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a union organized by Sakuma Brothers workers, sought improved wages and working conditions last season after workers were fired in retaliation for requesting improvements. They eventually filed a wage and hour class action lawsuit last fall against Sakuma for not receiving rest breaks and violations of their rights under the federal AWPA.

In a letter sent yesterday to the Department of Labor, the DC-based advocacy group Farmworker Justice and Seattle law firm Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt LLP urged the Department to deny Sakuma’s application for foreign H-2A workers. The letter asserts that the farm is acting to punish the Familias Unidas workers for seeking better wages and working conditions by replacing them with H-2A workers.

Sakuma Brothers filed an application this month for 438 H-2A workers for the summer season. The program requires that they demonstrate a shortage of available farmworkers in the United States. The law also requires Sakuma to contact its workers from 2013 and seek their return to work. Familias Unidas has already sent Sakuma letters from more than 460 of its members declaring their intent to return to work this season.

“How can Sakuma Brothers tell the federal government they have a domestic labor shortage when we have delivered over 460 pledges from workers who were employed at Sakuma last year?” asks Ramon Torres, one of the leaders of Familias Unidas.

“It is clear that Sakuma Brothers Farm seeks to displace domestic workers who have sought better wages and working conditions,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice. “The H-2A workers that Sakuma has requested do not have the same protections or ability to demand fair wages and working conditions, leaving them vulnerable to employer exploitation.”

“Using the H-2A temporary agricultural guestworker program as a means to retaliate against workers seeking better wages and working conditions violates the spirit and intent of the program,” said Laura Ewan, attorney at Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt. “If a worker applying for these positions also wishes to participate in labor organizing or other concerted labor activities, such participation does not create a valid job-related reason for denying the worker employment. Allowing these workers to be rejected for such reasons would deprive them of labor rights they enjoy under state law.”

Miami Herald OpEd: Life as an undocumented farmworker

Through Farmworker Justice's work with farmworkers and farmworker service organizations on the ground, we were able to help this undocumented farmworker lift up his voice to describe his experiences living and working in agriculture.

Original Article:

This week in Washington, immigrant groups are protesting the Obama administration’s deportation of immigrants — 2 million, they say, in five years. They want it to stop until Congress finishes passing immigration reform. Here is what it’s like to be an undocumented farm worker, as told (using a pseudonym) by a migrant worker in Florida.

It has been nearly 20 years since I left Mexico and came to Florida — two decades of hard work without getting ahead that much. That’s 20 years in orchards and vegetable fields here, or picking cucumbers in Ohio, apples in Michigan and Washington, tomatoes in Tennessee, melons in Georgia — always in fear of deportation. I’ve spent 20 years dreaming about becoming legal. For me, that’s the American Dream: to be a United States citizen.

We couldn’t make a go of it in Mexico in 1995, my wife and I; there wasn’t enough work so we came here. There really is no way to do it legally — to get a visa that lets you work and stay, unless you have family here or know someone important. I didn’t have any experience in the fields. Farm work was what I could get and so a farm worker is what I became, and that is what I am today. I’m good at it, but it’s not what I want my children to do.

We’d been here a couple of years before we sent for our two kids. It was scary. We paid someone to bring them across the border but for a long time, about a month but it felt like an eternity — we didn’t hear anything. We weren’t sure where they were or even if they were alive. Eventually we got a call that they were safe, but we had to drive to get them at the border. They were about 3 and 5 years old then. Today they are 24 and 22, also working in agriculture, with families of their own. Our other three kids were born here and are citizens.

Farm work is hard. We start in the orchards early, when the humidity is high and the trees are wet. We’re carrying bags and they get heavy, up to 90 pounds of oranges when full, as we climb up and down from tree to tree, reaching in and picking the fruit, placing it in the bag and moving on. We’re soaked all day with moisture and sweat. There aren’t many breaks for water or a bathroom, although some places are better than others. We work when it’s hot and cold; if we can’t work, we don’t get paid.

I travel — always taking my family. In recent years, we have driven 3,000 miles to Washington state. We get to the area where we hear they need apple pickers and look for a contractor. Sometimes we can afford a motel; or we sleep in the car until we find housing. We are cautious; if you attract attention someone could call a cop or the immigration guys. One slip-up and you’re caught in the system that takes you away from your family forever. Half of the people I work with are in the same situation.

When you’re undocumented, people take advantage. We show up for work as part of a crew of anywhere from 9 or 10 to 30 men and women. I’m lucky; I have a car so when I’m in a job with abusive supervisors, I leave. I have seen and heard of supervisors who take advantage of workers who don’t have other options.

This is particularly true for indigenous workers who don’t speak much Spanish or have a car; they stay because of a lack of options. Sometimes they cheat us out of what we are owed, or pay less than the contract promises. Even if we could report it, we would have to hang around instead of hitting the highway to the next job.

We never go back to Mexico. My father died and my wife’s father, but we didn’t attend the funerals. We would have had to leave the kids behind and if we couldn’t get back in, what would happen?

I know people who have been deported, even some married to legal residents or citizens. They tell us Congress might pass immigration reform. The most important thing is to stop breaking up families. I’ve tried to tell my children that the police are their friends, but they know that the police also can destroy our family. They’ve seen it happen with their friends. If we could get legal status or citizenship, none of that would be a problem.

Farm work is the work I have. I like the idea that we feed other families. Where I come from, the family is the center of everything. I hope a new law will protect our families in the United States.

Jaime Diaz is a pseudonym for a farm worker who lives in Florida.

U.S. and Mexico Labor Secretaries Meet to Discuss Guestworker Abuses

Today we celebrate an important victory in the fight for migrant workers' rights.

Thomas Perez, U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Alfonso Navarrete Prida, Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare for Mexico, will meet face-to-face for the first time. They will engage in ministerial consultations and sign a joint declaration pursuant to the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), the labor side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The declaration responds to a petition filed by CDM in 2011 on behalf of migrant workers in the fairs and carnivals, and also addresses petitions filed in 2003 and 2005 by Farmworker Justice, Northwest Workers' Justice Project and other organizations. The signing represents the first such ministerial declaration signed between the U.S. and Mexico in twelve years. According to Sarah Rempel, CDM Policy Director, "The fact that the labor secretaries are addressing abuses faced by guestworkers in their first ever meeting sends a strong statement about the critical importance of this pressing issue."

In CDM's petition, fair and carnival workers alleged that they were paid below minimum wage, were deprived of overtime wages, and were not paid for all the hours they worked. Workers also paid hefty recruitment fees and other costs in Mexico in order to get jobs in the United States."Migrants' rights should be protected. We go to work in the United States, to help U.S. companies with their business. To be exploited like this is an injustice," Leonardo Cortez, former H-2B fair and carnival and petitioner, insisted.

According to the NAALC, now in its twentieth year, Canada, Mexico, and the United States are obliged to provide the same labor and employment protections to migrant workers as to their own nationals. But, as described in CDM's petition, the U.S. is not meeting its obligations.

"We are pleased to see action being taken in response to these petitions, but the success of this process will depend on its implementation. CDM looks forward to engaging with the DOL and STPS in the upcoming stakeholder meetings," stated Rachel Micah-Jones, Executive Director of CDM. The implementation must include pre-departure education, increased enforcement of labor and employment laws, and access to legal services for guestworkers.

"Despite the long delay in this process, we are pleased that the governments of the United States and Mexico will discuss the longstanding concerns about the unequal treatment of H-2A agricultural workers under U.S. labor laws and the need for greater enforcement of farmworkers' labor rights on North Carolina's farms," said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy group that filed one of the formal complaints that the labor ministers are discussing. "Both governments have a responsibility to end the rampant abuses suffered by guestworkers in the tobacco and other harvests in North Carolina."

Today's ministerial declaration is a first step for the governments to ensure that migrant workers' rights are respected under the international treaty. It is an important step and worth applauding, but there is more work to be done.

EPA fails again to protect children from pesticide drift

Earlier this week, EPA announced their response to a lawsuit pressing them to better protect children from health-harming pesticides that drift from fields in rural areas. Meeting a legal deadline, the agency acknowledged “children may experience higher levels of pesticide exposure relative to their size than do adults," and that EPA had failed to consider drift by a 2006 deadline under the Food Quality Protection Act, but they declined to make any significant changes to their current plans, insisting that the current approach to addressing and regulating pesticides drift is good enough. Farmworker and environmental advocacy groups that filed the original petition firmly disagree.

"We are deeply disappointed with this complete non-response from EPA," says Kristin Schafer, Program & Policy Director for Pesticide Action Network, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. "The agency is completely disregarding the urgency of the risks these pesticides are posing, every day, to children's health."

The insecticide chlorpyrifos clearly illustrates the problem with EPA's assertion that current rules are adequately protective. Recent science has shown that even low levels of exposure to the chemical can harm children's developing brains and nervous system – and drift of the pesticide into homes and schools in rural areas is well documented. Under EPA's current regulations, this new science will be considered in the chemical review to be completed in several more years.

"We know kids are particularly vulnerable to pesticides in the first seven years of life," says Erik Nicholson, National Vice-President of the United Farm Workers, another plaintiff in the case. "EPA's refusal to act means another entire generation of children will be exposed to harmful pesticides – this is both unnecessary and unacceptable. And farmworker children currently bear and will bear the heaviest burden."

Studies show that farmworker children are not only exposed to pesticides that drift in the air and contaminate the water in rural areas, they also face exposure from residues of the chemicals brought into the home on their parents work clothes and skin.
"It is unconscionable that EPA forces citizens to go to court just to get a response to a valid petition to protect kids and then, after five years, says ‘eh, good enough’. EPA failed kids in the first instance and now says it’s okay to allow that state of affairs to continue for another decade or so, " says Janette Brimmer of Earthjustice, who filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs in the case. "We’re evaluating any and all options to make sure that the nation’s children are protected from neurotoxic pesticides.”

Farmworker and public health advocates filed the lawsuit in July, seeking an answer to a petition that the advocates filed with the agency in 2009, urging EPA to set safety standards protecting children who grow up near farms from the harmful effects of pesticide drift. The original petition urged EPA to evaluate the impacts of pesticides on children and adopt interim prohibitions near places where children congregate. In their formal response to plaintiffs, officials refused to take any additional steps to establish protections.

“Five years later and EPA is no closer to protecting children from hazardous pesticide drift,” Virginia Ruiz, an attorney with Farmworker Justice, also representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “It’s time for the Agency to take a stand for children’s health.”

Farmworker Justice Supports House Democrats’ Discharge Petition to Prompt House to Act on Immigration

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, Mar. 26th, 2014

CONTACT
Sarah Christiano
schristiano@fenton.com
202-789-7769

Farmworker Justice Supports House Democrats’ Discharge Petition
to Prompt House to Act on Immigration

Washington, DC – House Democrats today filed a discharge petition on legislation that should help move comprehensive immigration reform legislation that has been stalled by House Republicans’ reluctance to address the issue. Farmworker Justice praised the move as a positive step forward to obtain a vote on urgently needed immigration reform.

“As the Obama Administration approaches its 2 millionth deportation, families and communities across the country are being torn apart,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice. “This largely unwarranted deportation of workers, parents, spouses and community members must stop. The House must do its part to move immigration reform forward by passing legislation that includes a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, including a million or more farmworkers and their families.”

Nine months have passed since the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill with bipartisan support. That broadly supported compromise legislation includes a tough-but-fair agricultural stakeholder agreement that provides a roadmap toward legal residency and citizenship for farmworkers and their families and revisions to the agricultural guestworker system. It is supported by both grower and farmworker organizations.

“The Senate has risen to the challenge of addressing our immigration crisis. Now it is time for the House to do its part to finish the job,” said Goldstein.

To speak with someone at Farmworker Justice please contact Sarah Christiano at 202.789.7769

# # #

Farmworker Justice is a nonprofit litigation, advocacy and education organization that seeks to empower migrant and seasonal farmworkers to improve wages, working conditions, immigration policy, health, occupational safety and access to justice.

Farmworker Justice’s Statement on the HEAL Immigrant Women & Families Act

Farmworker Justice applauds Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (NM) introduction of The Health Equity & Access under the Law (HEAL) for Immigrant Women & Families Act. The HEAL Immigrant Women & Families Act would reduce barriers to accessing healthcare for certain immigrant populations.

The HEAL Immigrant Women and Families Act restores access to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for all lawfully present immigrants who are otherwise eligible, by eliminating the five-year bar on enrollment and the outdated, restrictive list of “qualified" immigrants, established in 1996. It would also allow DREAMers who participate in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) to fully participate in the Affordable Care Act. Like other Americans, these young people pay taxes to support healthcare programs and it makes no sense to deny them coverage.

Farmworkers are particularly impacted by immigration-status restrictions on access to health care. The vast majority of farmworkers, around 70%, are immigrants. Most farmworkers have low incomes, no health insurance, and limited access to health care, making them particularly vulnerable to environmental and occupational health hazards. While there is little nationwide data, the information available shows lower health outcomes for farmworkers and their children, including elevated infant mortality rates, shorter life expectancy, and higher rates of infectious disease, tuberculosis, parasitic infection, and diarrhea than the national average.

According to 2010 – 2012 National Agricultural Worker Survey data, only 31% of farmworkers have health insurance and only 16% of farmworkers receive employer-provided insurance. The HEAL Immigrant Women & Families Act would help many hard-working immigrants, including farmworkers and their family members, have greater access to quality healthcare.

New Safeguards Seek to Protect Farmworkers from Pesticides

The EPA today proposed strengthening the Worker Protection Standard, which has not been updated in more than twenty years, to address many agricultural pesticide safety concerns.

The federal Worker Protection Standard, first adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992, is notoriously difficult to enforce, and does not require record-keeping to document whether rules have actually been followed. It requires only minimal training on the risks that pesticide exposure can pose to workers’ children and families, so many workers don’t find out about those hazards until after the worst has happened. Additionally, it was designed with only adult workers in mind, but agriculture is different from most other industries in that it allows children to join labor crews at 12 years old – even at 10 in some crops – and these children are exposed to pesticides on the job.

“Each year pesticide exposure poisons tens of thousands of the men, women and children who harvest our food, yet regulations to protect these vital workers have not been updated to address this growing problem,” said Virginia Ruiz, Director of Occupational and Environmental Health for Farmworker Justice. “These injuries, illnesses, and deaths are preventable, and we urge the EPA to implement stronger protections as soon as possible.”

An estimated 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied to crops annually in the United States. The nation’s 2 to 2.4 million farmworkers face the greatest threat from the health impacts of these chemicals. Ten to twenty thousand farmworkers are injured by pesticides on the job every year in the US. Short-term effects of pesticide exposures can include skin and eye injuries, nausea, headaches, respiratory problems, and even death. Long-term exposure on the job can increase the risk of serious chronic health problems such as cancer, birth defects, neurological impairments and Parkinson’s disease for farmworkers, their families, and their children.

“We appreciate the EPA moving forward on this very important issue of stronger worker protections regarding toxic pesticides. We will review the proposed changes to evaluate their effectiveness in reducing pesticide poisoning of the people who harvest our food and their family members,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice. “We, and other farmworker advocacy groups, will comment on the proposal and mobilize the public to show broad public support for stronger protections.”

Last week 52 members of Congress, led by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Linda Sanchez of California, urged EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a letter to release the proposed rule, stating that the current agricultural worker protection standard is "limited" and "insufficient" to protect workers from the hazards of handling pesticides. The same week, California-based Pesticide Action Network submitted a petition to McCarthy to strengthen the Worker Protection Standard, signed by more than 18,000 citizens.

The proposed revisions to the Worker Protection Standard can be viewed on the EPA’s website. The revisions will also be posted in the Federal Register in March, at which time the EPA will begin accepting comments from the public for 90 days.

To learn more about the harm caused by pesticide exposure, click here to read Farmworker Justice’s report Exposed and Ignored: How Pesticides are Endangering Our Nation’s Farmworkers.

House Republican Immigration Principles Are a Step Forward, But Still Incomplete

The House Republicans’ immigration reform principles are an encouraging step forward in the necessary process to address a broken immigration system. But they mistakenly neglect the importance of opening up a path for hard-working immigrant families already in this country to become full participants in their communities and our country through citizenship.

The best way to ensure a strong and stable work force for American agriculture is through legal protection on the job and in communities for the roughly one million undocumented farmworkers already here and on the job. Our country benefits when its workers and their families are fully engaged in civic life.

“We are encouraged that the House is taking a preliminary step to address the immigration crisis in our country; however, the House GOP’s approach falls short of what is needed for 11 million people already living and working in our country,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice. “Our country will be stronger if hard-working members of our society are covered by labor laws and able to fully participate in civic life as citizens.”

Last year, the United Farm Workers and a coalition of agricultural employers negotiated for months, with the support of a bipartisan group of Senators, eventually reaching a tough-but-fair agricultural stakeholder immigration agreement. That compromise establishes a roadmap for undocumented farmworkers and their children to earn legal permanent residency and apply for citizenship if they meet a series of qualifications. Farmworker Justice urges the House and the President to consider the importance of that roadmap as they continue to address immigration reform.

“The men and women who labor under difficult and dangerous conditions to put food on our tables deserve a balanced and fair response to the immigration crisis in our country. We urge the House, Senate, and President Obama to continue working towards much-needed immigration reform,” said Goldstein.

Farmworker Organizations Applaud Progress on Updating Weak Worker Protections

Farmworkers and their advocates welcomed news that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will soon propose revisions to the Worker Protection Standard (WPS), which provides minimal workplace protections against pesticide exposures for farmworkers. A coalition of farmworker, public health, and other non-partisan organizations has long urged the EPA to include stronger protections for farmworkers in the WPS.

It has been more than 20 years since these rules have been updated and the EPA has admitted for more than a decade that the standards are inadequate. Following a recently completed review by the Office of Management and Budget, advocates expect the EPA will publish the proposed rule for public comment in the next few weeks. Advocates would like the updated rules to include improved safety training requirements, safety precautions limiting farmworkers’ contact with pesticides, and mechanisms to improve enforcement of workplace protections.

An estimated 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied to crops annually in the United States with our nation’s 1–2 million farmworkers facing the highest threat from the health impacts of these chemicals. The federal government estimates that there are 10,000–20,000 acute pesticide poisonings among workers in the agricultural industry annually. Short-term effects of pesticide exposures include stinging eyes, rashes, blisters, nausea, headaches, respiratory problems, and even death. Cumulative long-term exposures can increase the risk of serious chronic health problems such as cancer, birth defects, neurological impairments and Parkinson’s disease for farmworkers, their families, and their children.

Earthjustice and Farmworker Justice submitted a petition to the EPA in November 2011, on behalf of United Farm Workers, Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), The Farmworker Association of Florida, Inc., PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, or Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United), Farm Worker Pesticide Project (FWPP), California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF), and the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), urging it to strengthen the outdated and weak WPS.
“While most Americans benefit from broad workplace protections, farmworkers are fundamentally disadvantaged and face dangerous exposure to poisons over the course of their working life,” said Eve Gartner, attorney for Earthjustice, a public interest law firm. “We urge the EPA to offer farmworkers a more protective safeguard.”

“Each year pesticide exposure poisons tens of thousands of farmworkers and their families, leading to injury, illness, and death,” said Virginia Ruiz, Director of Occupational and Environmental Health at Farmworker Justice. “We applaud the administration for taking this step to help protect the men, women and children who labor to put food on our tables. We hope that the EPA’s revised Worker Protection Standard will include important safeguards for farmworkers and strengthen their right to a safe workplace.”

“Farmworkers have waited long enough,” said Tirso Moreno, General Coordinator of the Farmworker Association of Florida. “Every day without stronger regulations is a day where a farmworker risks short and long term health effects from workplace pesticide exposure. The time is now. Farmworkers need improved WPS standards.”
“The nation’s 2 million farmworkers deserve the level of workplace protections provided to other workers,” said Dr. Margaret Reeves, Senior Scientist with PANNA. “Protections for workers from pesticide exposure also means protection for farmworker children and families.”

New Report Outlines History of AWPA, Farmworkers’ Poor Conditions and Recommendations for Achieving the Law’s Goals

Thirty years after passage of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (“AWPA” or “MSPA”), a new report issued today says the law has proven critically important to preventing wage theft and dangerous working and living conditions for many farmworkers across the country. However, the report by Farmworker Justice calls for enhanced labor protections in the law and regulations and for stronger enforcement by the Department of Labor.

“Unfinished Harvest: Agricultural Worker Protection Act at 30,” says the 1983 law, enacted in response to previous legislation’s failure to achieve equity and sufficient protection for migrant workers, has proven beneficial to farmworkers. The law requires agricultural employers to disclose and comply with job terms, regulates the use of farm labor contractors – who are notorious for labor abuses – and contains safety standards for some housing and transportation vehicles.

Congressman George Miller said: “This report by Farmworker Justice is timely and a must-read for policymakers. While AWPA has helped remedy and prevent wage theft, farm labor contracting abuses, unsafe transportation and unhealthy housing, there is much more to be done. Because our immigration system is broken, the majority of farmworkers lack authorized immigration status, and most are too afraid to step forward to challenge illegal employment practices. Unscrupulous employers need to be weeded out, and abused workers need greater access to the justice system and immigration. The working people who sow and harvest our food every season should be treated with dignity and respect.”

However, many farmworkers continue to experience wage theft, and dangerous housing and transportation. Many factors contribute to this reality, notably our broken immigration system and farmworkers’ limited access to attorneys, but many problems can be addressed in the short term through stronger enforcement of AWPA and in the longer term through improvements to the law. To address systemic abuses, the Department of Labor should emphasize holding farm operators jointly responsible with their farm labor contractors for violations of labor protections.

“The AWPA’s enactment was an important step forward,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice, “but the wages and working conditions for most of the workers who cultivate and harvest our fruits and vegetables are still inadequate. To reduce serious abuses that harm farmworkers and undermine the agricultural sector of our economy, there are improvements that should be made in AWPA’s enforcement, in the regulations issued to implement the law, and to the law itself.”