Laws: July, 1997 - Number #2

It has often been difficult to find adequate and affordable housing for workers who move into rural areas. In agriculture, where the demand for labor is often seasonal, federal and state regulations developed to ensure that, if employers offered housing, it met minimum standards.

Instead of bringing farm worker housing up to higher housing standards, many farmers eliminated their on-farm housing, pushing workers into nearby towns and cities. Living off the farm often increases the workers' costs, since they typically pay more rent than they would have been charged for on-farm housing, and they must also pay for rides to work. Many of the small towns and cities near farming areas that depend on seasonal farm workers are or have sections that are "overgrown labor camps."

A design professor at the University of California Davis developed a prefab-housing unit that can house six single men in about 800 square feet and can be built for about $35 per square foot, or $33,000. The unit is a 57-foot long narrow, wood-framed building constructed on top of a steel-carriage system composed of steel beams that is 14 feet wide. It rests on an axle, and can be towed from site to site.

Housing issues are also becoming more important in rural communities that hire immigrant workers to fill nonfarm jobs. Poultry processor Hudson Foods Inc. in Noel, Missouri, for example, invested $3 million to build 60 920-square foot duplex units that it rents to workers, many recruited in south Texas, for $400 per month. The Hudson example may presage a move by nonfarm employers of immigrant workers to provide at least transitional housing for some newly-hired workers who follow the "chicken trail" north from the border. Hudson has 1,200 employees who have average annual earnings of $16,000 (RMN, January 1997).

Company-owned housing is usually opposed by unions, who argue that it gives too much power to employers, who can evict striking workers from their homes. A union organizer with Local 2008 of the United Food and Commercial Workers says Hudson evicts workers who are injured on the job. Hudson says that workers who leave the company have 10 days to vacate the housing.

Heartland Food Co., a unit of Willmar Poultry Co., Willmar, Minnesota, rents 30 mobile homes to workers in Tracy, Minnesota, charging $260 a month for two-bedroom units and $360 a month for three-bedroom units.

California. In April, California farmers expressed fears that winter floods that destroyed housing would also lead to farm labor shortages, as workers who lost housing stay away, and migrant workers do not return to the area. Some 2,000 migrant workers are believed to move into Sutter and Yuba counties north of Sacramento each spring to thin and harvest soft tree fruits such as peaches, and the loss of 300 to 350 houses, barracks and trailers that usually house migrant workers became a rallying cry for farm worker advocates and farm employers in a joint fight with the federal government.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says that it provides housing assistance to persons who lose their primary residences in natural disasters, not to persons who move into a disaster-struck area four or five months later, as migrant farm workers do: "farm workers not residing in the disaster area at the time of the disaster and consequently not displaced from their primary residence as a result of the disaster" are not eligible for flood relief. In addition, FEMA argues that there is sufficient housing available in the area.

Advocates counter that rental prices--$450 per month for two-bedroom apartments--are too expensive for migrant workers, who earn about $800 per month. There may have been some upward pressure on rental prices as a result of residents losing housing and receiving FEMA assistance to rent until their homes are repaired.

A California Assembly committee in July 1997 approved a bill that would provide $1 million in low-interest loans to farm employers and nonprofit agencies to repair or build new farm worker housing in the flood stricken areas. However, all parties agreed that the money would be too little too late in 1997: $1 million in loans would lead to the construction of about 40-6 bed units, it was estimated, and the state would require at least six weeks to set up an application process and deal with applicants.

A retired city planner for Fresno helped Merced County to re-build a 1965 62-unit housing complex for migrant farm workers on Westside Boulevard at Highway 99, west of Atwater with $3.1 million in state farm worker funds; the complex will be maintained by the county housing authority. In California, most migrant housing is open from April through October, and rents for $4 a day for a two-bedroom, $4.50 for three bedrooms and $5 for four bedrooms.

Most farm workers in California do not live on the farm where they work, which means that they must drive to work. The California Highway Patrol increased its El Protector program to teach traffic laws in Spanish from one to eight officers in 1997, after the CHP found that Hispanics were disproportionately involved in traffic violations. In 1987, when Hispanics were about one-fourth of the Valley's population, they were involved in 85 percent of the driving-under-the-influence arrests.

City inspectors used local sheriffs to evict 50 immigrant workers from 10 garages and huts on a downtown lot in Thousand Oaks, California on April 17, 1997. The median home price in the city of 113,000 is $240,000. Many of the workers evicted were migrant construction and farm workers who paid $25 per week to share garages and tool sheds with five or more other workers; their landlords, in turn, had rented the single family homes in front of the garages and sheds for $1,000 per month. Thousand Oaks has an ordinance that requires landlords to obtain permits before renting to four or more unrelated adults.

The Los Angeles City Council in June delayed action on a plan that would impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent out illegally converted garage dwellings. City officials estimate that up to 200,000 people in Los Angeles live in more than 42,000 garage residences. Under current procedures, inspectors from the Department of Building and Safety issue a notice to landlords who rent out an illegal garage dwelling, giving them 30 days to vacate the structure.

Washington. The Hispanic Washington state senator who took the lead in extending unemployment benefits to farm workers in Washington in 1989, Margarita Prentice (D-11th District), was criticized in May 1997 by the UFW for supporting legislation, Senate Bill 5668, that would permit migrant workers to be housed in housing that does not meet normal building codes. The Washington State Department of Health would establish "temporary worker building codes ...that meets the basic health and safety needs of workers," including allowing workers to be housed in tents during the short but labor-intensive cherry harvest.

According to proponents, temporarily approved shelters would be better than current conditions. Prentice says, there will never be "permanent housing" for cherry workers because "cherries are a 23-day crop and we suddenly have 14,000 people arriving" in east Washington state.

Tents were used to house some cherry harvesters in 1996, which led to a lawsuit filed on behalf of several farm workers who said that their health had been put at risk by living in tents. Washington farmers who house their workers in tents are required to have sanitary facilities and showers close by.

The UFW argued that the housing bill would permit growers to put farm workers in shelters without running water. The UFW and Prentice have been in conflict since a 1993 dispute over a bill that would have given Washington farm workers collective-bargaining rights. The governor vetoed the housing bill, citing lack of support from the migrant community.

As the cherry harvest in eastern Washington peaked in mid-June, workers reportedly camped in grower-operated and private camp grounds for a harvest that can be as short as seven days. Natalie Gonzalez, who handles migrant issues for the state Department of Health, said that growers are permitted to establish tent camps in their orchards, but many growers have refused to do so, citing the threat of lawsuits.

In 1996, growers who got provisional state licenses to house workers in tents also got letters from rural legal service groups asserting that they had the right to enter the camps and talk to workers. A class action suit against growers who housed workers in tents in 1996 was certified in 1997.

AFL-CIO president John Sweeney joined UFW president Arturo Rodriguez on July 9, 1997 in Wenatchee, WA held a rally to call attention to its effort to organize 25,000 apple pickers. The Teamsters are trying to organize 11,000 warehouse workers, targeting 550 workers at Stemilt Growers Inc. in Wenatchee and the workers employed by Washington Fruit in Yakima.

Washington's Employment Service reported that apple harvesters averaged $5750 in 1996, picking apples for $8 to $10 per bin, and packing house workers $11,000. Stemwilt says that its warehouse workers average $8.60 per hour, or $18,000 per year; the Teamsters say that the average warehouse worker earns $11,000 per year. The Teamsters claimed in April that 60 percent of Stemwilt's 550 workers had signed up for Teamster representation.

Washington produces about 60 percent of America's fresh apple crop; the farm value of the 2.75 million tons or 95 million 42-pound boxes of Washington apples in 1996 was $1.1 billion. An estimated 89,000 persons are employed in Washington agriculture.

Florida. In Florida, many farm workers live in mobile home parks. In June, 1997, the electricity was cut off at ABC Mobile Home Park, 919 S. 25th St. in West Palm Beach, which has about 100 trailers inhabited mostly by migrant farm workers.

Lisa Pemberton-Butler, "National union activists gather state's apple workers in Wenatchee," Seattle Times, July 10, 1997. Bob White, "$3.1 million complex will house farm workers in Atwater," Modesto Bee, July 6, 1997. Hugo Martin, "War on Illegal Garage Units Softened," Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1997. David Postman, "Senator Prentice tests loyalties with labor in odd alliance," Seattle Times, May 12, 1997. Marcos Breton, "In search of shelter: Winter's floods may hinder the harvests of summer," Sacramento Bee, May 11, 1997. Andrea Gerlin, "Firms Build Worker Housing In Areas Where It's Scarce," Wall Street Journal, May 2, 1997.