Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, September 6, 2004, Monday

Copyright 2004 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
All Rights Reserved
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

September 6, 2004 Monday Metro Edition

SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. 1A

HEADLINE: (CORRECTION)

BYLINE: Joy Davia, Staff, JDAVIA@DemocratandChronicle.com

BODY:
Farmworkers in New York are eligible for workers' compensation benefits. This information was incorrect in a story on Page 1A Monday. (DC 9/9/04, 2A)
State's farmworkers remain on the fringe
Controversial movement to unionize takes on urgency.
Joy Davia
Staff Writer
Most union fights these days center on higher pay requests, preservation of benefits or stability of workplaces.
But one sector is still fighting for the rights most workers take for granted. New York farmworkers - even those who work year-round for the same employer - do not qualify for disability payments or overtime pay and receive no health insurance or workers' compensation benefits.
They also do not have the right to form a union to collectively bargain for these benefits.
"Why do I want a union? Everybody gets treated better," said Maria Brown, who lives in a two-bedroom mobile home on a farm labor camp outside Brockport with her husband, Charles, and children Stephanie, 5, and Charlie, 8 months. "I don't understand why in New York they want to make it so very hard. I don't have enough money to buy diapers and all my other stuff. How can I save? I want a better life to do something in this world and I'm not going to do that making $5.15 an hour."
The issue is complicated. Agriculture, in upstate New York and nationwide, is a huge contributor to the health of the economy. Farmers, already struggling to survive, would have more costs at a time when they are unable to raise prices much because of competitive forces.
The movement to improve farm workers' benefits have had small successes along the way, advocates say.
Since 1999, New York farm workers have gained the right to a minimum wage, drinking water and restrooms in the fields for farms with 11 or more workers, said Bill Abom, western New York coordinator for Rural & Migrant Ministry.
But the need for reforms has grown stronger, advocates say, because the traditional migratory patterns - although still a staple of farm life - are diminishing.
In New York now, 46 percent of the estimated 87,000 farm workers are year-round workers.
Farmers' burden
But in an industry in which farm owners themselves are finding it tough to afford their own health insurance and other necessities, adding on costs is a burden that could put some out of business, they say.
Nationally, one-third of farmers are uninsured, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Besides, most farmers are good to their workers, abiding by laws and working alongside them in the fields, said Maureen Torrey, co-owner of Torrey Farms in Elba, Genesee County. If this is not the case, farm workers can easily work elsewhere because there are not enough farm workers to cover the need, said Torrey, whose farm grows vegetables such as cucumbers and onions and employs about 400 workers during the harvest.
"A farmer was telling me the other day that he needs 10 more people and he can't find them," she said.
"These are the kind of jobs where workers will leave you over a quarter."
Farm lobbyists also say that giving farm workers the right to unionize could put the U.S. agriculture industry at the disadvantage at a time when foreign competition is growing.
"Agriculture is different than any other industry," said Chris LaRoe, spokesman for the New York Farm Bureau, a farm lobby organization.
"If farm workers strike for a week or two at a bad time, it could decimate an entire farmer's crop.
"Especially at harvest time," he added. "The fruit has to be picked. The apples and cabbage don't wait. It's not like manufacturing where you go on strike and come back and the raw materials are still at the plant."
Some New York farms are also struggling with their largest competitor: Canadian farms. The Canadian minimum wage is a dollar lower. "They're just killing me in this marketplace," Torrey said.
Others, such as apple farms, are worried about changes that could add competition from countries such as China.
That's why anything that inflates labor costs, such overtime for farm workers, could put area farms at a larger disadvantage, Torrey said.
Protections elsewhere
A handful of states offer varying forms of collective bargaining protection, including Arizona, Ohio and California. Based on experiences in those states, the national labor movement has taken on issues important to farmworkers such as a bill that would grant citizenship to some illegal aliens. In North Carolina, workers have unemployment benefits.
But progress has been slow in New York, advocates say, even with support from major unions.
A farm worker Fair Labor Practices Act, which includes such protections, has passed the New York state Assembly, although the state Senate has yet to take action on it, Abom said.
It's doubtful that such an act will become law here. "But at least it's on the agenda in New York state," said Lance Compa, who teaches labor law at Cornell University. "I'm not aware that it's on the agenda of many other states."
But it is debatable whether unionizing will reap all the desired benefits.
It was Cesar Chavez in the 1960s who led the effort in California to organize farm workers into unions, eventually creating the United Farm Workers union. Farm worker wages and union membership surged in its early days, although it has lagged of late.
A vast majority of farm workers in California, for example, are not in a union, according to Promise Unfulfilled, a report by the Center for Immigration Studies.
The problem?
There was a growth in illegal immigration and labor contractors who found non-union workers for farmers, among other reasons.
Still, other successes came out of the farm worker unions, such as unemployment insurance and minimum wage coverage, added Philip Martin, professor at the University of California at Davis and author of the immigration studies report.
"The unions were saying, 'We want to make this labor market like other labor markets' and that is what they did," he said.
The consequences of a strike by unionized farm workers concerns New York state Assemblyman William D. Reilich, R-Greece.
"A farm is not like a factory that produces parts," Reilich said.
"You can shut down the factory for two weeks and pick up production again. A farm season is limited. If you miss the opportunity, the crops are lost, which is devastating for the farm owner and it could be devastating for the food supply."
A union also could limit the ability of farmworkers to make money by working additional hours or by blocking piecework pay, Reilich said.
Employment benefits for farmworkers legally in the United States should be "explored," he said.
Speaking out for rights
Bill Abom's group, Rural & Migrant Ministry, which has offices in Brockport and Poughkeepsie, and others are now trying to get more farm workers to speak out on behalf of their rights.
"Many do not speak up because of fear," he said. "They're living on so little and are very vulnerable if anything happens to them."
This is one reason why Brown and other farm workers gathered at St. Luke's Episcopal Church on a recent evening.
They're learning leadership skills, such as legislative processes and how to tell their stories to the media, through groups such as the Rural and Migrant Ministry Inc. and Centro Independiente Trabajadores Agricolas (CITA), also known as The Independent Farmworkers Center.
Brown, who left her native Mexico in 1996, said it's not just about the money, even though she and her husband make $15,000 a year and a third of her paycheck goes back to her parents in Mexico, who are caring for her other daughter, Andrienna Leone.
One wish? Dignified housing. The workers often can't afford to pay rent, so they take the free housing provided by their employer. Workers such as Brown - who did not want to name her employer out of fear that she would lose her job - live on these camps all year. In the summer, she works in fields of cucumbers, cabbage, peaches, apples and tomatoes. Brown spends her winters trimming and cleaning cabbage.
Brown's two-bedroom mobile home has water spots on some ceilings. There are boarded-up windows and doors that don't close. Her husband, Charles, had to fix, or they had to replace, some of the flooring and appliances.
"My camp isn't too nice," Brown said earlier that evening, while at a meeting at a Brockport church for farm workers fighting for improved living and working conditions.
Still, Brown's home is in better shape than others in the farm labor camp. During harvest season, about 40 laborers cram into mobile homes or cement-block living quarters. Rust, exposed wires and pipes cover the walls, as doors hang off hinges and appliances remain broken. The quarters smell and feel like bug-infested locker rooms.
Other workers who gathered at the church told of injustices. Jorge Luiz Salazar remembered working 36 hours straight without overtime on one farm.
Yet it's the basic rights that are state-mandated for other industries - and state-subsidized in some cases - that have most farm workers fighting for changes in the law.
Conchitta Solis, who earns about $230 a week and has three children younger than 10, wished she got disability pay. This is a huge issue for her family right now because she is nine months pregnant and cannot work. This, coupled with what she says was substandard treatment by some farmer owners, has her distressed.
"I want to be treated with respect," she said.
Includes reporting by staff writer Michael Wentzel.
What's at stake
Farmworkers argue that they deserve the same benefits as workers in other industries such as the right to collective bargaining, unemployment insurance and disability pay. Many farmers worry that if workers organize and strike, it could ruin a crop and that an increase in labor costs could cost them their businesses.The industry is significant to both the state and area economies: Statewide, farms generate more than $3.1 billion a year in revenue. In 1992, farmers in the six-county Rochester region reported income of $522.7 million.BrownSays that he once worked 36 hours straight without overtime pay on one farm.Inside Map traces route of Labor Day Parade.