Bucolic for visitors, but less so for those working on them.
August 15, 2016 5:42 AM   Subscribe

 
A Latino buddy of mine shared a thing on Facebook not too long ago about how Driscoll's apparently pays $6 a day to pick berries.

I guess arguably American agriculture has always been fundamentally fueled by slave labor?
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:45 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


California's a garden of Eden
A paradise to live in or see
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi
posted by entropicamericana at 5:55 AM on August 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


I guess the bigger question is, where can your average American go to buy produce grown and picked by people paid livable wages? Where can you purchase a $3 head of lettuce in the US? Also, is the going rate for lettuce seriously a dollar? Seriously?
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:02 AM on August 15, 2016


Is it just me, or is the perspective on that watermelon-tossing photo a bit odd? My first reaction on looking at it was WATCH OUT YOU'RE GOING TO STEP ON THE TINY PEOPLE.
posted by jackbishop at 6:41 AM on August 15, 2016


I don't understand how you'd become a functioning adult in the US without understanding that just about every aspect of US consumer culture is based on systematically screwing over someone, somewhere, and pressing your advantages for all they are worth.

"Broken system" my ass; it's working as intended.
posted by Western Infidels at 6:53 AM on August 15, 2016 [23 favorites]


California is an agricultural powerhouse. 1/3 of the country's vegetables and 2/3 of the county's fruits and nuts come from California. California Agriculture is also a nightmare on many fronts. The demand for cheap produce forces awful labor practices. Compound that with heavily subsidized water use for water intensive crops in what is essentially a desert in the middle of a drought.
posted by Badgermann at 6:55 AM on August 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


There's a reason why we have Cesar Chavez day, and why unions are important.
posted by lalochezia at 7:43 AM on August 15, 2016 [8 favorites]




Farmworkers frequently encounter abusive labor practices at the hands of unscrupulous employers. Workers all too often labor for employers who skirt the minimum wage laws or practice other forms of wage theft, work under unhealthy or dangerous conditions, or are made to live in grossly substandard housing. Employment abuses in agriculture are difficult to address because farm work is not covered by many important labor protections enjoyed by most other workers in this country. Nonetheless, farmworkers do rely on some of the provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (“AWPA”) to provide minimum levels of worker protections.
posted by Postroad at 8:44 AM on August 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oy gevalt. I had no idea re: Driscoll's being that bad. Dug up an article - looks like Mexican workers were paid 120 pesos ($6-7 an hour), per the Anderson Valley Advertiser, Aug. 29, 2015.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 10:32 AM on August 15, 2016


Slate: Good Crop, Bad Crop - Too often, workers picking America’s produce face poor treatment and wage theft. The U.S. is barely using a law designed to stop it.
But there is one particularly powerful tool at the disposal of the U.S. Department of Labor: Tucked within the Fair Labor Standards Act, a landmark bill passed during the Great Depression, is something called the “hot goods provision.” This little-known statute empowers the agency to block products made in violation of wage and child labor laws from being shipped across state lines, compelling violators to pay fines and change their practices.
[...]
Hot goods changed the landscape. “To my knowledge, every time we’ve done that [invoked hot goods] to the manufacturers, they have coughed up the money within 24 or 48 hours,” a federal labor official told the Los Angeles Times in 1989, soon after they launched the campaign. Using the hot goods provision gave the agency the muscle it needed to clamp down hard—while also serving as a warning to other businesses.
[...]
The following year, in the summer of 2012, DOL investigators visited three blueberry growers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley—Pan-American, B&G Ditchen Farms, and E&S Farms—and determined that they were failing to pay their workers the federal minimum wage.
[...]
Since the case was never litigated, no court ever determined how badly the blueberry farms underpaid their workers. What is certain is that the case galvanized the agricultural industry, which has since pursued a range of strategies to strip the DOL of its most powerful enforcement tool. And they have been at least partially successful: While Schrader’s bill has not yet passed, he joined forces with the Farm Bureau to insert a clause into the 2014 Farm Bill that requires the secretary of agriculture and secretary of labor to “consult” about the use of hot goods when applied to perishable agricultural goods.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 10:47 AM on August 15, 2016


For perspective, a box of Driscoll's berries (1lb, i think?) costs between $2.50-$6 at the national chain grocery stores here in Los Angeles. I usually see them 2/$5-$6, especially at Ralphs (Kroger).
Driscoll's organic are twice that, most recently spotted at Whole Foods for nearly $7 a box.

Yes, I know that no one who lives in SoCal should be buying supermarket produce, much less strawberries, when there's so many great farmers markets around. When they last longer, there's a better chance of me not throwing my food and money away spoiled.
posted by ApathyGirl at 11:52 AM on August 15, 2016


Unlike his wife, however, he is now part of a powerful union – the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) – and said he now enjoys better hours and conditions to the point of being “contento”, happy. “In a union, you’re protected.”
For farm workers, this is especially true.
posted by theora55 at 2:21 PM on August 15, 2016


Around here in San Benito County, the UFW commands a rate of $12.00/ hr. Of course, that's going to go up in the next few years with the minimum wage law that was just passed, reaching $15.00 by 2022.
Now here's the other side of the problem: we actually have an undersupply of farm workers in Central California, to the point where it can be a problem if a change in the weather pattern disrupts a fast-harvest crop (tomatoes for instance).
Farm work is not something that anybody chooses when there are any alternative jobs available.

One thing that's a major variable is the power balance. The UFW pretty much dictates the terms to small farmers and farm interests, while the really huge agricultural conglomerates have the clout and reserves to haggle and haggle hard.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 3:36 PM on August 15, 2016


I've been boycotting Driscoll's for nearly a year now. It is, to me, both stunning and shameful that the food-related media sites I follow -- all of which love reporting on more mindful modes of food consumption -- apparently have all decided that the produce they lovingly photograph is picked by ageless and immortal elves who are happy with a thimble of nectar for compensation.
posted by sobell at 10:16 PM on August 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


The answer is obvious. Zippy Duvall*, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) president, recognizes that Americans won't work for field hand wages, and in a interview on RFD tv the other day he said that importing labor from Mexico seems like the way to have our grapes and cake too.

(I can't track that interview past a website with mandatory registration, so I won't link it.)

This is the American way. We can create another cascade of industries (transporting, feeding and housing of migrant labor), while having our way with the price of harvest. What could go wrong?



*I am not making this up.
posted by mule98J at 5:04 PM on August 16, 2016


The UFW in California has been fighting to get farms to pay overtime after 8 hours instead of the current 10 hours. It died earlier this year by 2 votes and has until the end of the month to get done under this legislative session (or it has to start the process over again). They also maintain a list of which farms carry their union label. Child food insecurity in Monterey County is 23%, 29% in Fresno county. These are the children of people who are PICKING FOOD. Like, actually picking it on a daily basis for more than 10 hours a day. Food passes through their hands yet they often cannot feed their own children. No other words for it than FUCKED UP.
posted by marylynn at 9:08 AM on August 18, 2016


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