Thread: UFW: Help protect California Strawberry workers

https://secure.ufw.org/page/contribute/strawberries10

Protect strawberry workers

<![endif]-->Working in the strawberries is a hard job. Workers regularly have to stoop 10 hours a day, trudging down long rows and are even put at risk from pesticides. The UFW is out in these fields fighting to protect these workers. Will you help?

Veteran strawberry worker Petra Soto tells us of being exposed to pesticides and watching a co-worker collapse in the field. Could you imagine living with this possibility on a daily basis? Plus, the pesticides she is repeatedly exposed to have caused an allergic reaction on her skin.

Not only do workers like Petra have to be afraid of pesticides at work, but entire communities are put at risk from pesticide drift at home, if they live nearby. In order to make fields and communities safer, the UFW is working to prohibit dangerous pesticides like Methyl Iodide.

Pesticides aren’t the only problem. There are also unscrupulous foremen. Marcelino Diaz reports, “When we fill up a box of strawberries, [the foreman] steals it from us by giving someone else credit for it. This makes us feel bad and discriminated against. Those boxes that he steals from us are needed by our family, especially for our two little ones, to buy food, clothes, and shoes.â€

The abundance of cheap labor there and federally subsidized irrigation has made it possible for people to buy California cattle pasture and establish strawberry plantations. Strawberries used to be a side crop scattered around the United States near the communities that consume them. The current situation has removed a source of revenue from market gardeners across the country.

The thing that grabs me about this woman's situation is that while most strawberry harvesters are as it says on piece work and make less than minimum wage the cost to the California taxpayers of educating her children is higher than that. For every dollar she makes in income a larger amount is going to educate each of her children.

These folks always whine about being disrespected. I don't notice them showing much respect for the taxpayers that fund their lifestyles with education for their children, welfare benefits to their anchor babies, raiding food pantries.

Well now folks, just two days ago our Labor Secretary, Ms. Solis gave out her phone number so people lie Ms. Peto Solo with complaints can call for help. I would suggest that if life is so tough for these folks they take advantage of that.

What this article fails to mention is that the strawberry crops they speak of are no doubt situated in the most liberal area of California. There are so many freebies for the illegals and legal ag workers, day care for their children, free health care, free dental care for them and their kids, you name it, it's free.

American workers would think they'd died and gone to heaven if they even had a few of the freebies available in California.

This type of story makes me sick, no wonder American has had it up to here with these invaders.

They chose to come here and in most cases work here illegally and that is what you get. If they were brought here legally then the employer would have to follow our labor laws.

How about if America make it easier on the California strawberry pickers by not buying any more strawberries? I know I can live without eating them as they are too damn expensive anyway.

dangerous pesticides like Methyl Iodide

Dangerous to pick, more dangerous to eat. But isn't California that state that bans everything? Why not ban this pesticide?

This is what Cesar Chavez was fighting against not for illegal immigration. Growing up next to Salinas Valley I can remember students going into the fields to help the farmers pick strawberries because of some sort of emergency over the weather.

I lay you odds those unscrupulous foremen are fellow Hispanic's. I have no problem with seasonal farm workers demanding better working conditions. I have a problem with illegal immigrants breaking our laws, having anchor babies and bankrupting our country.

Originally Posted by MontereySherry

This is what Cesar Chavez was fighting against not for illegal immigration. Growing up next to Salinas Valley I can remember students going into the fields to help the farmers pick strawberries because of some sort of emergency over the weather.

I lay you odds those unscrupulous foremen are fellow Hispanic's. I have no problem with seasonal farm workers demanding better working conditions. I have a problem with illegal immigrants breaking our laws, having anchor babies and bankrupting our country.

i'm right there with you , i too have no problem with sesonal workers wanting better terms ....

there are actually programs in place to allow farmers to bring in sesonal help from outside of the country legally ... i don't know how many farmers go through the proper channels , but i think there's a signifigant amount who do .

Originally Posted by marquis

Originally Posted by MontereySherry

This is what Cesar Chavez was fighting against not for illegal immigration. Growing up next to Salinas Valley I can remember students going into the fields to help the farmers pick strawberries because of some sort of emergency over the weather.

I lay you odds those unscrupulous foremen are fellow Hispanic's. I have no problem with seasonal farm workers demanding better working conditions. I have a problem with illegal immigrants breaking our laws, having anchor babies and bankrupting our country.

i'm right there with you , i too have no problem with sesonal workers wanting better terms ....

there are actually programs in place to allow farmers to bring in sesonal help from outside of the country legally ... i don't know how many farmers go through the proper channels , but i think there's a signifigant amount who do .

Many in areas of Florida do not bring them here legally. Look at Immokalee where alot of the farms are and you will see how many are illegal as they are the ones driving without a valid license.