Thread: Farmworkers struggle as they wait for work

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Farmworkers struggle as they wait for work
By JULISSA McKINNON, Register Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006 1:11 AM PDT
As Santiago Salvador sat trapped in a strange bedroom in Tijuana, after he and his three immigrant companions had been kidnapped from the Tijuana airport, he never doubted he would somehow make it safely to Napa Valley.

Even as his captors demanded phone numbers and addresses of his family members in California, the 25-year-old was dead-set on escaping the bizarre bind and eventually crossing the border into the United States illegally.

Together Salvador and his comrades managed to escape from the violent men who had originally posed as coyotes (border-crossing guides). After bolting out of the house, they caught a taxi that ferried them across the sprawling border city.

Salvador's trio managed to find a less conniving coyote and slowly Salvador wound his way north to the Napa Valley as planned.



Riding a bus north, the young man assumed $12 an hour vineyard work would quickly make his northward journey worth all the risk and stress he had endured since leaving his parents home in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

But upon arriving in St. Helena Salvador received a harsh surprise. Rain, rain, and more rain. And no work whatsoever. Tractors couldn't mow in the soggy fields. And the cooler temperatures had delayed the bud break on many vines, so few were ready to be trimmed by farm hands.

"I didn't expect this," said Salvador, who first came to Napa Valley from Jalisco last year and is hoping to soon start his second season of vineyard work. "You quickly learn that what you plan doesn't always come true."

The young man said he is still waiting for word from a labor contractor who promised to hire him once the weather cleared and the work of thinning vine shoots got underway.

In the meantime, Salvador said he has occasionally tried to pick up odd jobs, waiting with other labor-hopefuls near the corner of St. Helena's Sunshine Foods where landowners and labor contractor come looking for day laborers. But for the entire month Salvador has been here, he said he hasn't worked one day.

Instead of sending money back to his mother and father and saving wages to finish his own half-built brick house Salvador has had to borrow rent and food money from his family.

"They're already asking me to pay them back and all I can say is 'How?'" Salvador said, his voice soft-spoken but resigned.

"I know the work is here. I just need to wait for it to stop raining and have patience."

But he said he understands it's easier for him to remain calm than other migrant workers who have families waiting on wages they have yet to earn.

Angel Caldern, the director of the River Ranch farmworker camp, said most of the approximately 60 farmworkers who reside at the center send money home to their families in Mexico.

"I see they are depressed. They are pensive. They smoke and smoke and smoke. They're not making any money," he said.

Caldern said several who were waiting for the rains to stop and vineyard work to start left St. Helena weeks ago in search of work elsewhere. Some have struck out towards the Salinas area. Others were headed to southern California.

"I see a lot of them on the phone with family and friends trying to find something. Every year this happens," Caldern said.

Only this year the waiting period for spring work is longer than anyone expected.

Gil Ortiz, who oversees the Calistoga farm worker camp, said the late start to the growing season could mean a month's less wages for many farm workers.

"Most of them come here to support their families. They expect six or seven months of work and if they lose one month, that's significant," Ortiz said. "They come up short of what they expected."

Meanwhile, some workers say they are not fazed by the rains. The vines will grow, be it this month or next month, said Jose Morales, 58, who has annually migrated to do farmwork in California since 1978. He and his friend Jose Ramirez, 52, both have wives and children at home expecting the first check to arrive any day now.

"They can hold on a couple more days," Morales said in Spanish. "In this life nothing comes easy."

"We're just like prisoners waiting to be freed," he added with a chuckle. "It's up to God how long he wants it to rain. There's nothing we can do but wait."

Morales added that he never complains about rain. He wishes it rained in his native Michoacn, Mexico more, to soften the land and make it more fertile.

"It's good that it rains. Rain brings life," Morales said.

Morales said he is more worried about the increasing number of migrants in Napa Valley, which he said is creating a glut of workers. He and Ramirez said it's becoming increasingly difficult to land jobs and good wages.

"The situation is troubling," said Morales, a blue-eyed gruff-voiced man who wore a tall, white cowboy hat as he sat drinking his after-dinner coffee in the River Ranch dining room. "There's a lot of cheap working hands out there and there's more people than jobs."

Morales said he is more worried about the increasing number of migrants in Napa Valley, which he said is creating a glut of workers. He and Ramirez said it's becoming increasingly difficult to land jobs and good wages.

"The situation is troubling," said Morales, a blue-eyed gruff-voiced man who wore a tall, white cowboy hat as he sat drinking his after-dinner coffee in the River Ranch dining room. "There's a lot of cheap working hands out there and there's more people than jobs."

Wasn't there a farmer whining because he wouldn't get workers?