Factory farming- corn version.

The way this big farm working system works is sometimes entirely baffling. For those of you unfamiliar with the system (as I was just two months ago), let me explain how it works. Big farm companies (those signs you see next to corn fields for huge multi-million dollar businesses) find one person (the crew leader) to recruit a number of workers. The company pays the crew leader a lot of money and tells them to use that money for transportation and housing. Not surprisingly, these crew leaders often skimp wherever they can with workers in order to get more money for themselves. The crew leader is often easy to pick out-- read: expensive cowboy boots, big trucks with expensive rims, flashy jewelry.

Meanwhile, the farm workers come from south Texas with very little, and by the time they arrive to central Illinois, they have nothing. Emergency food stamps-- even IF (and I've come to realize this is a big if) the migrants have the opportunity to apply immediately and the applications get turned in as they should-- take three business days. We spoke to some migrant workers who arrived on Friday, July 2nd, applied for food stamps that day, and since we had a holiday, had to wait until Thursday of the next week to get their food stamps. It was upsetting to me to have to tell these people that there was nothing I could do. Furthermore, because it was a holiday weekend, food pantries were closed.


In central Illinois, many of these workers live in what used to be an Air Force Hospital in Rantoul. Now, it's stripped of all of the medical equipment but some remnants, such as signs like "Pediatric Ward," remind you of what it used to be. Some couches are in the common areas. Some rooms are small enough for one person or one family. Some rooms are large and are separated into rooms by makeshift separators, i.e., blankets hanging off of clotheslines. Kitchens are sometimes portable hot plates. Laundry is done in a common room downstairs and sometimes hung on the bushes outside. Air conditioning in any room is surprising, and flies and more in all rooms are expected. The workers are in cornfields all day and come back dirty, tracking mud through the hallways. On one side of the hospital, there are bare floors, so the pesticide-packed dirt just sits where barefoot kids run and play. On the other side of the hospital, where old rugs still are on the floors, the dirt and moisture is rubbed into the carpet. The smell of mold is more noticeable by the carpets, and we all get headaches when we are there for too long.

The longer I do this job, the more this system infuriates me-- how can this continue?

See also: http://cu-citizenaccess.org/content/empty-harvest-migrant-family-faces-hardships-rantoul. (My favorite quote: “How are you going to get people from South Texas to come to Rantoul, Illinois?” he asks. “If you tell them, ‘You’re only going to get 20 hours a week and live in a dump,’ no one is going to come." Fellow IMLAP workers, identify the speaker.)

strawberries...

Just a quick thought today after meeting with a client yesterday who works every strawberry season for the same small farmer. It's 4-6 weeks of work every year in which she gets paid $0.45/quart of strawberries. Not only do the 45 quarts she might pick in a day not add up to minimum wage, it just struck me how little (and probably lots more than what pickers at bigger farms get!) of the $2.99 or more purchase price of a quart of strawberries actually gets to those who harvest them.

un dia largo...

I met my first "mojados" today. When I use this Spanish word for what English-speakers might call "wetbacks" I do not mean it in any pejorative way. I think I use it because I can't find any other words to really describe the depth of these people. I've worked with lots of Latinos who've held many different types of jobs- meat packing in Iowa, housekeeping in Missouri, even now the other migrant workers that live at the camp in Cobden where my satellite office is.
But this was different. These workers come with a special type of visa the government has created for agricultural workers (sometimes referred to as guest workers) called H-2A. With this visa comes the right to enter the country to work... for whatever season the employer has specified in his work order (after he has proved there are no US workers that are willing, able, and qualified to to the work, and that bringing such workers will have no adverse effect on the wages and working conditions of similarly employed workers in the US). There are also certain protections built into this status such as a guaranteed proportion of the promised hours, a [sometimes] higher than minimum wage rate of pay, transportation, and housing.

I guess what really got me today was the absolute isolation and desperation in which these men (and they are all men, separated from or without families) live. Their status here is directly tied to the employer who brought them (unequal bargaining power anyone?). They cannot look for another job here if displeased with the current work. No one has a car. They are brought to a place they may have never seen or heard of. Their "homes" (often warehouses, storage units, or, like today, abandoned schools converted into housing) are far away from any town. The employer must arrange for transportation to town every so often, but like any rule, this can be bent or broken. Some have prepaid cell phones they purchase at Walmart or wherever but I can't help but wonder what would happen in an emergency...

I'll contrast this with what I feel is the situation of the other migrant workers I have encountered, which, let me be clear is not sensational. Most of the people living at the camp where my office is come on their own. Some have come for many years to the same place and have family in the area or nearby. This means they decide to leave from Texas or Mexico or wherever and drive (usually) to their destination. They come and go as they please and choose where they live. They too sometimes work long hours and living in a migrant camp isn't glamorous. They too worker for the same or similar employers who often bend and break rules.

En fin, today was an incredible 11.5 hour day. This internship has been a wonderful, though unexpected, opportunity to utilize both my social work skills (a lot!) and my legal knowledge to help others. One final bit of info about migrant workers before I collapse into bed (it's been too long since I spoke Spanish alllllll day)- check out "Harvest of Shame" a 1960s documentary about migrant workers. Although things have definitely improved in terms of the laws designed to protect such workers, I would argue that their invisibility continues to this day. I bet many of you, like me, didn't even know there were migrant workers in the midwest.