National Farmworkers Awareness Week

This week is National Farmworkers Awareness Week (March 28 to April 3). The purpose of this week is about more than just the history of the farmers and their struggles. It is also about meeting these fair demands from thousands of farmworkers.

-Decent and healthy living and working conditions for farmworkers
-An end to unfair treatment under the law
-Fairly harvested food
-Fair pay for farmworkers

Working on a farm is the third most dangerous job in the United States. Sadly, those who grow our food are denied many of the rights and protections that other workers get. These include overtime pay, unemployment insurance, and protection when joining a union. They are excluded from American fair labor standards.

Many farmers today, in the US and around the world, are treated like modern-day slaves.

"If you've ever bought a tomato from a supermarket during the winter, you've benefited from slave labor in Florida," said Megan Greenwell, an activist who fights poverty.

A 2008 Federal case coming out of Fort Myers, Florida proves this. Five Immokalee field bosses pleaded guilty to keeping Hispanic farmworkers as slaves (literally).

The 17-count indictment stated that for two years, bosses Cesar Navarette and Geovanni Navarette kept more than a dozen workers in boxes, shacks and trucks on their property. The workers were chained, beaten and forced to work on farms in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. The indictment shows that the men were forced to pay rent of $20 a week to sleep in a locked furniture van. They were forced to urinate and defecate in a corner of the vehicle.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers conducted and investigation into this case and six other cases, which resulted in the liberation of over 1,000 field workers.

"I think most Americans would find it hard to believe that people in our country are pleading guilty to slavery charges... but that is what is going on in the tomato fields of Florida," said Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt). "While slavery is, of course, the most extreme situation in the tomato fields, the truth is that the average worker there is being ruthlessly exploited. Tomato pickers perform backbreaking work, make very low wages, have no benefits and virtually no labor protections."