In the Fields: Farmworkers see abuse, fraud
Editor's Note: With the fields in the Yuma area in full swing, the Yuma Sun decided to take a moment to explore the lives of farmworkers and the impact of farming on Yuma County. Today, the Yuma Sun will look at the hiring process and issues of abuse.
Every year migrant farmworkers leave their homes and come to the United States to cultivate, harvest, and pack fruits and vegetables.
While the work they do to put food on tables, M. Janine Duron, the director of Helping Restore America's Agriculture Workforce, said migrant farmworkers are often among the most abused and mistreated workers in this country.
"The biggest problem is they fear retaliation from their employer if they complain or try to assert their rights," Duron said. "They are afraid that if they complain they will be fired, not hired back for the following season, or even lose their visas."
"Since they can't lose their visas, because it is their livlihood," she added, "they put up with the abuses for as long as they can."
Many of these migrant workers will come to work in the United States under the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker Program and will have a work visa issued through the program.
Duron added that the promise of stable employment, is more important to many migrant workers than asserting their legal rights.
While she praised the Yuma-area growing companies for complying with all the regulations as best they can, Duron said it is the smaller agriculture companies where most of the abuses take place.
"They all try so hard to do everything right,' Duron said. "I would like to see the growers here take responsibility for their own crews."
In addition to the culture of fear that exists, Duron said migrant farmworkers deal with numerous other work-related issues such as lack of job security, low wages, work-related injuries, heavy machinery, pesticides and heatstroke, underpayment, sexual harassment and discrimination.
Among the worst of those, Duron said, is the fraud that takes place in Mexico while companies are over there recruiting their workers.
She said often times, recruiters, whether they work for a legitimate company or not, sometimes charge farmworkers between $300 and $1,500 to have their names added to a waiting list to be hired.
"The migrant worker will pawn everything they have to pay that fee, which is illegal," Duron said. "There may be a job offer, but more often there isn't."
While some of these recruiters are fake, Duron said, even some legitimate companies aren't aware that their recruiters are making several thousands of dollars by charging the workers they will be bringing back a fee to have their names put on the list of workers being brought back.
Duron recounted an incident in 2008 in which she was contacted by some migrant workers from Tabasco, Mexico, who each paid a recruiter $300 to have their names added to a waiting list to be hired, but the recruiter never came back for them.
"It works because agriculture companies like to hire the same workers every year," Duron said.
As a way to stem this type of fraud, Duron said her agency has been working with others to launch a campaign intended to raise awareness among migrant workers about the guidelines recruiters must follow.
The Department of Economic Security also gives the migrant workers an orientation on their first day at work.
The H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker Program, Duron explained also provides migrant workers certain guarantees in exchange for their labor, which some don't get in full or at all.
Duron said companies that hire migrant workers through the program are required to provide them with free housing, a minimum wage of $8.70 an hour, free transportation back and forth from the work site and $9.90 a day for food.
In most cases, Duron said the abuses are committed by foremans and supervisors, who work closest with the migrants, and the companies aren't even aware it is happening.
"Most of these foreman and supervisors are former farm workers who have worked their way up the ranks," Duron said. "In Arizona, foremen and supervisors aren't required to have any training other than what they get from the company to meet their standards,"
James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854.
