Thread: State investigates substandard housing given to migrant work

http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-771454.html

State investigates substandard housing given to migrant workers


Sep 20, 2006 : 12:37 pm ET

CURRIE, N.C. -- The state Labor Department is investigating whether an agriculture company provided substandard housing to as many as 40 migrants hired to pick tomatoes in eastern North Carolina.

Stained mattresses leaning against concrete walls and a roach-infested grime-streaked refrigerator were found at the former "Jamaican American Club" in Currie. Investigators say the workers were crowded into the space with no hot water, no shower and too few beds. They say whoever provided the housing violated a state law aimed at protecting migrant farm workers from living in those conditions.

The laborers worked for Ag-Mart. The company is not required to provide housing for seasonal workers and is not the focus of the investigation. Ag-Mart President Don Long said workers are paid an average of $9 an hour during harvest.

"Our people make good wages. They should be able to live where they want to live," Long said.

State investigators said they are trying to find the landlords and the labor contractors who hire, supervise and arrange the workers' housing.

Regina Luginbuhl, head of the Labor Department's agricultural safety and health bureau, said it's difficult for the agency to keep track of who provides housing for the roughly 500 Ag-Mart workers in North Carolina. Other farms in the state that have 100 or more workers offer housing, she said.

"We would have to go down and hang out in those counties and devote all of our small muscle to finding Ag-Mart workers," Luginbuhl said, adding that the nightclub was found only after the agency received a complaint. "We can't do that."

State law requires migrant housing to be registered with the state Labor Department, something Luginbuhl said Ag-Mart contractors aren't doing. Estimates show that fewer than 50 Ag-Mart workers in North Carolina live in registered housing, she said.

Worker advocates say migrants in unregistered housing are hidden from agencies and organizations that could help them with things such as English classes and child care. Registered housing is also inspected by the state to make sure it has plumbing, electricity and meets other minimal standards.

It isn't the first time state regulators have investigated the housing of Ag-Mart workers. In 2003, three labor contractors for Ag-Mart were fined a total of $20,000 after inspectors found Ag-Mart workers living in poor conditions in unregistered housing in Pender and Duplin counties.

The company still uses the labor contractors who were cited, Long said. He said arranging housing for workers would be too burdensome for Ag-Mart. Company officials would have to check on housing to make sure it didn't violate state standards, and workers wouldn't like having their employers intrude.

"Would you like to live so, every morning, I came to your house and said, 'Let me see what the inside of your house looks like?'" Long said.

But Dale Bone, a farmer who until he retired ran one of the state's largest operations, said he sees housing as a required part of hiring migrant workers.

"If you didn't have housing, you weren't going to have no labor," said Bone, who provided enough dormitories, houses and apartments to hold 1,100 workers during his 30 years growing tobacco, sweet potatoes and cucumbers.

"The farmers who have been there a long time, they have their housing set up," said Greg Schell, a Florida lawyer who has sued Ag-Mart over housing.

Schell, who is head of a Florida Legal Services program that advocates for poor farmworkers, said Ag-Mart can have more flexibility if it doesn't own housing.

"Anybody coming in new, like Ag-Mart, it's really expensive. And if they want to move to a different area, they don't want to be stuck with a bunch of housing," he said.

Ag-Mart started work in North Carolina in late 2001. Last fall, it was charged with the biggest pesticide violation in state history for allegedly endangering workers. The company has asked that the charges be dismissed.

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/488535.html

Published: Sep 20, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Sep 20, 2006 06:40 AM


Ag-Mart workers land in poor housing
Ag-Mart workers land in crowded, squalid housing

Kristin Collins, Staff Writer
CURRIE - The faded sign on the former nightclub reads "Jamaican American Club." Inside, roaches skitter around a grime-streaked refrigerator. Stained mattresses lean against concrete walls. Boards cover windows.
Until a few weeks ago, this crumbling nightspot in Pender County was a home for 30 or 40 migrant workers. State labor officials say the workers -- who pick grape tomatoes for Ag-Mart, a Florida company with large farms in Eastern North Carolina -- were crowded into the building with no hot water, no shower and not enough beds.

The Labor Department is investigating who is responsible for the housing, which violated a state law set up to protect migrant farm workers from living in squalor. Investigators say they will try to track down the landlords and the labor contractors, who not only hire and supervise Ag-Mart workers but also arrange housing.

Ag-Mart is not the focus of the probe. Farms have no legal obligation to provide housing for seasonal labor, although many do. And if, like Ag-Mart, growers stay out of the housing business, they are not responsible for the conditions in which workers live.

"I'm not involved with housing," said Don Long, president of Ag-Mart, adding that workers average $9 an hour during harvest. "Our people make good wages. They should be able to live where they want to live."

But Ag-Mart's size makes the situation unusual, said Regina Luginbuhl, head of the Labor Department's agricultural safety and health bureau. She estimated that fewer than 50 of the company's approximately 500 workers live in registered housing. By comparison, Luginbuhl said, every other large farm in North Carolina that employs 100 or more workers offers housing.

With so many landlords spread throughout Brunswick and Pender counties, where Ag-Mart farms, she said the law leaves her few tools. Luginbuhl said she found the nightclub only after receiving a complaint. Josephine S. Harrison of Currie, the owner of the nightclub, declined to comment.

"We would have to go down and hang out in those counties and devote all of our small muscle to finding Ag-Mart workers," Luginbuhl said. "We can't do that."

As a result, she said, many of Ag-Mart's workers live crowded in fly- and roach-infested dwellings. There, they are hidden from officials who could provide access to child care, schools, immunizations and health care.

Ag-Mart grows its tiny, sweet grape tomatoes, called "Santa Sweets," in North Carolina, Florida, New Jersey and Mexico. It also grows a larger tomato known as an "Ugly Ripe."

The company moved into North Carolina in late 2001, and last October, the state Agriculture Department charged Ag-Mart with the biggest pesticide violation in state history. The company is fighting the charges and says it never put employees at risk.

In 2003, the state Labor Department fined Ag-Mart for failing to properly train and equip workers using pesticides.

State regulators have launched previous investigations of housing for Ag-Mart workers. State law requires that migrant housing be registered with the Labor Department. Inspectors check the housing before workers move in to assure that it meets minimal standards for plumbing, electricity and other basics.

In 2003, the Labor Department cited three labor contractors -- Salvador Ponce, Sergio Salinas and Pasqual Sierra, all of Florida -- and fined them a total of $20,000 after inspectors found dozens of Ag-Mart employees living in squalid, unregistered housing in Pender and Duplin counties.

The company still uses Ponce and Salinas, Long said.

Some offer housing

Other large farms maintain housing for migrant workers. Dale Bone, one of the state's largest farmers until he retired this year, said he considered housing a required part of hiring transient Mexican labor. During 30 years growing tobacco, sweet potatoes and cucumbers, he built enough dormitories, houses and apartments to hold 1,100 workers.

Bone said his housing kept workers coming back.

"If you didn't have housing, you weren't going to have no labor," Bone said, "because there wasn't no place to get any housing."

Long, Ag-Mart's president, said running housing would be too burdensome for his company. He said the company would have to check that workers haven't, for example, thrown trash in the yards or pulled mattresses off frames, putting the housing in violation of state standards.

He said many workers prefer to live without that kind of intrusion from their employer.

"Would you like to live so, every morning, I came to your house and said, 'Let me see what the inside of your house looks like'?" Long said.

He also said some workers have chosen to stay in North Carolina year-round, so they wouldn't need migrant housing.

Many of the company's workers live in the only housing available in this rural swath of Eastern North Carolina -- aging trailers and abandoned buildings scattered alongside rural roads.

On a recent visit to Pender County, The News & Observer found four unregistered camps of Mexican migrants who said they worked for Ag-Mart. Some of the camps were groups of trailers, while others were just one house that held several workers. Under state law, even a single trailer must be registered with the state if it houses migrant farmworkers.

At each location, stained mattresses resting on bare floors filled nearly all the living space. Twelve people lived in a cinder-block home about the size of a double-wide trailer, and two single-wide trailers housed eight people each.

Kitchen appliances were caked with dirt. Window screens often flapped in the breeze, and the sweltering homes buzzed with flies and other insects.

The men in one trailer, at the end of a dirt road just north of Currie, said they travel between Ag-Mart's farms in North Carolina and Florida -- living in housing that labor contractors arrange.

They said the cluster of trailers is home to Ag-Mart workers every growing season, although labor officials found no registrations for homes at that address since 2004.

The law's standards

State law requires 50 square feet of sleeping space for every occupant. Luginbuhl said that means no more than four or five people can live in one single-wide.

At this home, the men said seven adults and one child lived in the trailer. The living room held two mattresses. A stroller and baby walker were piled on the couch. Dirt streaked the walls. A man heated tortillas in a kitchen teeming with flies.

Several miles west, near the town of Atkinson, five adults and three children shared a single-wide trailer.

One woman said she illegally crossed the border six years ago, when she was 18. She left behind her parents, corn farmers from Hidalgo, and a daughter who was then just a year old. She hasn't seen the child since.

Now 24, she has two more children, ages 1 and 3, and said she earns $20 to $100 a day picking tomatoes. The money pays for a tiny room at the end of the trailer, which she shares with her husband and children. Another family lives in a small room at the other end, and a single man has his bed in the living room.

The trailer is lighted by bare bulbs hooked to extension cords. Some windows are made from boards. Screens are torn free. Thin carpet partially covers plywood floors, and ceiling tiles are stained from leaks.

Several occupants of the trailer said a labor contractor arranged the housing. They said they pay $30 each, every week, to a landlord who comes on weekends to collect rent. That amounts to about $650 a month in rent, roughly the same as a North Raleigh apartment with amenities such as air conditioning and a community pool.

Greg Schell, a Florida lawyer who has sued Ag-Mart over housing, said that not owning housing allows flexibility for the young company, whose tomatoes have been on the market only a decade.

"The farmers who have been there a long time, they have their housing set up," said Schell, head of the Farmworker Justice Project for Florida Legal Services, which advocates for the poor. "But anybody coming in new, like Ag-Mart, it's really expensive. And if they want to move to a different area, they don't want to be stuck with a bunch of housing."

Hidden workers

Worker advocates say the company's housing policy leaves many of its workers without resources that are important to public health and child welfare. When housing isn't registered, workers are often hidden from those who provide health care or child care.

Christine Alvarado, who runs Migrant Head Start, a federally funded child-care and resource center, said that when she can't reach workers, they don't have access to immunizations that protect against contagious disease, dental care or health clinics that could save them visits to emergency rooms. They don't benefit from English classes or parenting classes, which help their children in school. Without child care, they often leave their children home alone or take them to the fields.

"Every year, we have a child bitten by a snake or somebody who falls in a ditch," Alvarado said. "Every single year, we have something that happens because kids are in the fields."

Staff writer Kristin Collins can be reached at 829-4881 or kcollins@newsobserver.com.

What does Ms Alvarado think we should do about the 4 billion people
on the planet who are worse off than the folks in Currie, NC?