Trafficking: In Florida's tomato fields, a fight for ethical farm labor grows
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Patrik Jonsson Staff writer
| Immokalee, Fla.
This story was written to be viewed on the Monitor's long-form platform.
Under a blazing sun bearing down on the Florida peninsula, Silvia, a Guatemalan immigrant, labored in the staked-down tomato fields that stretched into near-infinity, patrolled from above by ragged gangs of black vultures.
For female migrant workers, the rows could be dangerous places, with threats ranging from sexual harassment and groping to outright assault. As farm laborers, they have few options if they get fired, says Silvia, speaking through a translator.
鈥淏osses who would have more power to force you to go out with them and pay you more to do it ... that happened to me,鈥� says Silvia.
Sexual harassment and assault has for decades been part of a massive, market-driven, exploitation of largely Mexican, Haitian, and Guatemalan migrant workers. A decade ago, US attorney Doug Molloy called Immokalee and its vast corporate tomato fields the 鈥済round zero鈥� of human slavery in the United States. According to reports and lawsuits, abuses against both legal and illegal migrants ranged from beatings and death threats to wage theft, from illegal trafficking to unhealthy exposure to farm chemicals, as well as outright slavery and rape.
Such conditions, added to the threat of deportation, underscore how the migrant laborer in the US today remains at once the most critical as well as vulnerable player in a US agricultural sector valued at $226 billion, .
Farm worker exploitation, nationally, remains routine 鈥� despite strengthened congressional protections this year. Yet for most of Immokalee鈥檚 field hands, blatant wage abuses and physical cruelty have largely 鈥� and almost suddenly 鈥� vanished from the tomato rows.
A decade-long farm worker-led effort to push corporations such as Walmart and Yum! Foods to demand farmers submit to 鈥渃lean labor鈥� audits yielded, for the first time, the introduction of shade tents, mandated water and bathroom breaks, and a 鈥減enny per pound鈥� bonus that has distributed $22 million so far directly back to tomato pickers over four years.
That can amount to $80 a week for many workers 鈥� basically, an extra day鈥檚 pay per week. Ninety percent of corporate farms that dot the Florida peninsula now submit to the audits, which are performed in the field under the supervision of a retired state听judge.
鈥淚n the past three years, [the tomato fields in Immokalee] have gone from being the worst to the best,鈥� according to Susan Marquis, dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica,听Calif.
Ethics in the produce aisle
But if Immokalee shows how quickly and dramatically supply chain pressure can curb labor abuses, historic conditions here are only a sliver of an exploitation problem that fills the American shopping cart, says former Immokalee farm worker Nely Rodriguez, who, along with Silvia, now works with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The goal now, says Ms. Rodriguez, is to 鈥渆xpand the program to Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Alabama 鈥� to every sector where farm workers are struggling.鈥�
In North Carolina, for example, 39 percent of the state鈥檚 150,000-strong farm workers report being illegally trafficked or otherwise abused, according to the June 2014 issue of the International Journal of Rural Criminology.
As a Haitian migrant picker named Peterson says, one only needs 鈥渆yes in the field鈥� to see the difficult conditions. Peterson, who is using a pseudonym, holds out a paycheck for a recent day鈥檚 work in Florida, showing he made $69.77, after taxes, for a 13-hour workday in the cucumber fields. That鈥檚 even though he technically makes $8.50 an hour, the state minimum听wage.
To that end, the CIW and other farm worker groups, including The Farmworker Alliance of Central Florida, are going beyond picketing big corporations to instead leverage US consumers directly to use the Immokalee project to force reform more deeply into the darkest corners of the American cornucopia.
A certified 鈥淔air Food鈥� label for produce that is grown and packed ethically is part of a nascent 鈥渃lean labor鈥� movement that spans from the pepper fields of South Florida to small organic farms in California鈥檚 valleys. Immokalee tomatoes certified as 鈥渃lean鈥� from labor abuses are available at Whole Foods stores throughout much of the country. This fall, Giant and Stop & Shop in New England began carrying the label. Similar labels such as 鈥淔ood Justice Certified,鈥� which expands farm worker protections to organic products, are also beginning to crop up from New York to California.
Such sourcing clues can be a powerful initiative, experts say, given that the labels tap directly into a US consumer base that has begun to turn once routine shopping decisions into moral guideposts.听
鈥淭he label allows personal judgment: What are you willing to tolerate and what are you willing to ignore?鈥� says Mr. Molloy. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 a difficult question to avoid when the product is right there literally in folks鈥� shopping听cart.鈥�
Indeed, the popularity of 鈥渇air trade鈥� coffees and chocolate suggests that a certain portion of US consumers do, to at least some extent, attach a value to purchases that benefit farm workers, whether in the US or overseas.
鈥淎 tomato is a tomato, so I鈥檇 pay a little more鈥� to make sure workers are treated fairly, says Angela Carter, a young Atlanta woman exiting a Kroger supermarket in the city鈥檚 Edgewood neighborhood.
While the label strategy may not be a guaranteed success, over the past decade, the Immokalee workers so far have managed nothing less than 鈥渞evolutionary changes in the structure of the agriculture sector,鈥� says Rutgers University labor economist Janice听Fine.
And labor experts see a lot of promise in using labels as a tool to spread the reforms seen in Immokalee to other agricultural centers around the听US.
鈥淟abeling is a way of asserting the ability of consumers to act according to moral values that they want to implement in their lives,鈥� says Alan Rubel, a philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who specializes in information ethics and policy. 鈥淭he label tells consumers the way in which their food would fit with their moral 听views.鈥�
But challenges remain in making sure that promise is realized.
Some supermarket chains, including Kroger and Publix, have balked, claiming they can already assure shoppers that their vegetables are grown without exploitation. (Farm worker groups disagree.) Moreover, some market experts like Mr. Rubel worry that a proliferation of value-guided labeling will dilute their impact. And the idea of certifying products for ethical labor practices is a different proposition than, say, organic or non-GMO labels that serve primarily as family health guides.
For Yesica Ramirez, a former field hand who now works for the Farmworker Alliance in Apopka, Fla., the labels present another paradox, given higher prices that come with certified 鈥渃lean labor鈥� products.
鈥淧eople who work the fields are consumers, too, and they would be impacted more if food is more expensive,鈥� says Ms. Ramirez. 鈥淲e are changing, we can do it, but it鈥檚 still a challenge.鈥�
鈥楶ig pens filled with humans鈥�
Exploitation of farm labor has a long, sobering history in the United States, running all the way back to slavery. In the 20th century, the US imported foreign labor from Mexico under the brutal 鈥渂racero,鈥� or 鈥渟trong arm,鈥� program, that began after World War II and ran until the 1960s. And despite endless documentation 鈥� as well as farm worker rebellions like the Delano Grape Strike in California in the late 1960s 鈥� corruption and abuse remain entrenched.听
As early as 1940, the journalist Ernie Pyle bemoaned conditions in Immokalee, where he described 鈥減ig pens filled with humans.鈥� Given decades of such reports, the US Congress strengthened protections with laws such as the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act of 1983 and the more recent Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of听2015.
But according to US prosecutors, farm labor exploitation, even more so than sex trafficking, is a persistent and largely invisible crime, hidden amid grungy labor camps and behind ominous 鈥渘o trespassing鈥� signs at field gates. Exploited workers often don鈥檛 know their rights, and even if they do, are often afraid to assert them, adds Ramirez, the former Apopka farm worker.
Only about 80,000 of an estimated 1.3 million migrant workers have farm, or H2, visas. And even visa holders are often loath to complain about abuses, given that their working papers tie them directly to a single employer, often a farm labor contractor, who can send them home at听will.
Recent farm worker abuse cases include a 2014 federal lawsuit that alleged that an Oakley, Idaho-based Christmas tree grower forced five Hispanic visa holders into horrific working conditions in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. Threatened with death of they didn鈥檛 keep working, the men claimed they were fed rotting food, forced to drink unfiltered river water, and endure rashes from the chemicals they were told to handle.
In July, a federal court in the Northern District of Ohio unsealed a 15-count superseding indictment 鈥渃harging three defendants with luring Guatemalan minors and adults into the United States on false pretenses, then using threats of physical harm to compel their labor at egg farms in Ohio,鈥� according to a Justice Department press听release.
Other cases have involved tomato pickers locked in box trucks under armed guard and first-graders laboring in Michigan blueberry groves. At the same time, lawsuits documenting wage abuses also have increased, although the numbers are still听small.
The number of pending cases involving farm labor abuse in front of the rose from 1 in 2010 to 10 in 2014.
Profound market pressures, many of these cases show, can make even former farm workers complicit in labor听abuse.
The road from farm to table is a long one, with many middlemen. Downward pressure by corporate food forces 鈥� and ultimately demanded by US consumers looking for lower prices 鈥� has squeezed margins for every layer, especially the foreign migrants in the听fields.
The farm-to-table 鈥渟upply chain is there to protect the party above. In agriculture, it鈥檚 really hard to get a labor force, because it鈥檚 very hard work,鈥� says Professor Fine. 鈥淧rosecutions have showed that the traffickers were often the farm labor contractors, who controlled the housing, the food, the pay, and supervised the worker in the听field.鈥�
鈥楳ostly, we take care of each other better鈥�
Francisco Dominguez is a farm labor contractor, albeit a new and different听breed.
Today, his colorful school bus 鈥� where workers鈥� rights papers are affixed next to the door 鈥� is followed by a pickup truck pulling Porta-Potties 鈥� a distinct shift from past practices, when women especially would not drink water during scorching days so as not to have to take a bathroom break, and be docked pay 鈥� or lose their听job.
The transformation of shadowy labor contractors to farm-hired crew chiefs has turned out to be the most fundamental shift in the fields, labor economists say. But it is also representative of the broader 鈥淔air Food鈥� strategy: Push for specific concessions demanded by workers who witness actual abuses, unshackled from more academic pleas for social听justice.
In Mr. Dominguez鈥檚 case, he was one of the original Florida farm workers to agitate for changes in the 1990s, particularly in the safety of orange pickers. 鈥淭hey had the wrong ladders, so many people would fall off and hurt themselves, even get killed,鈥� he said. Those early efforts had at least one measurable impact: Workers were given ladders that were听safer.
Another example shows how difficult it can be to get even small reforms on the farm. Only recently did farm workers win a concession they鈥檇 been demanding for years: That they be allowed to fill tomato baskets only to the brim, not piled as high as they would go. Since workers are paid in part by how many baskets they pick, extra-full baskets represented a 10 percent extra margin for farmers 鈥� money that now goes to the听workers.
Another crew chief, a burly-chested man named Jaime Zamora, stands in a salt-stained shirt behind a truck in front of a popular Immokalee taqueria. Free-running chickens peck at the gravel at his boot-laced feet. He runs his crew of melon pickers around south Florida and all the way to up to Cordele, Ga., where he says he puts them up in a motel 鈥渟o they can watch TV and relax鈥� after a day in the听field.
鈥淎 lot of things have changed,鈥� he says. 鈥淢ostly, we try to take care of each other听better.鈥�
US and slavery 'should never be in the same sentence'
But there are complexities to US farm labor policy that still give Immokalee a fortress-like air. Reporters are often barred from the the farms by threats of felony convictions, meaning it鈥檚 difficult to independently confirm assurances that field conditions have improved. Moreover, the partnerships between farm worker groups such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and multinational cucumber and tomato growers remains a tenuous one, given the market and cultural realities at听play.
Historically, farm worker exploitation has been overshadowed by larger immigration politics in the US. For Americans to understand labor trafficking and rectify abuses remains a tall order, given the vast cultural chasm that spans between the average American (including law enforcement) and farm worker communities.
Mr. Molloy, the former US attorney for South Florida, made prosecuting slavery cases his听legacy.
One case that stands out is a young woman who was being held as a slave on a farm 鈥� unpaid and unable to leave. Her unusual religious convictions turned out to be a key to solving the case. The girl explained that she felt trapped because her boss had clipped a lock of her hair and kept it in a vial around his neck. When the man was booked, Molloy asked to see the possession envelope. Sure enough, there was the girl鈥檚 hair in a vial 鈥� a piece of evidence that led to his conviction.
In Molloy鈥檚 mind, the 鈥渇air food鈥� label faces a challenge similar to the one he had persuading American juries that they should care about what happens to exploited and abused farm workers like the girl with the vial of hair.
鈥淭here鈥檚 an educational aspect to it, but, in this political time period that we鈥檙e in, when we鈥檙e hopefully trying to honestly sort out our feelings and policies on illegal immigration, it鈥檚 important to remember that this is different than it鈥檚 being portrayed,鈥� says Molloy. 鈥淭hese [farm workers] are not scavengers coming in to steal听jobs.鈥�
Success is possible, he says, largely by appealing to a sense among Americans 鈥渢hat the words 'United States' and 'slavery' should never be in the same sentence.鈥�
[An earlier version of this story implied that Silvia had been assaulted, which CIW denies.]
Oct. 26: Modern slavery: Labor trafficking is everywhere and nowhere
Nov. 2:听Trafficking: One woman's journey from Staten Island slavery to her own boss
Nov. 9: From England's pews, a quiet abolitionist finds his voice on slavery
Coming Nov. 23: How technology is freeing victims of trafficking
