Rural Laws: January, 2002 - Number #3

California's minimum wage rose from $6.25 to $6.75 an hour on January 1, 2002. Employees paid at least $2,340 a month (twice the minimum wage for full-time work) are generally exempt from the minimum wage and record-keeping requirements.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed its fifth suit since 1998 targeting sexual harassment of female farm workers, alleging "severe and pervasive sexual harassment and retaliation" at King City-based Coastal Valley Management Inc. In 1998, the EEOC charged sexual harassment at Fresh West Harvesting of Gonzales, California, settling the case for $90,000, and at Tanimura & Antle in Salinas, California, settling that case for $1,855,000. Golden Valley Produce and William Bolthouse Farms in Bakersfield in 2000 settled a sexual harassment charge for $150,000, and Sunmet Agribusiness in 2001 settled for $45,000.

On December 13, 2001, an Amtrak train slammed into a minivan carrying farm workers near Shafter, killing seven farm workers who worked at a Shafter almond orchard and lived in Bakersfield, Shafter and Wasco.

Housing. In Carlsbad in San Diego county, migrant and farm worker rights groups marched to protest the city's decision to clear several makeshift camps near the Agua Hedionda Lagoon in which 50 farm workers lived. The notices of eviction tell workers that they will be arrested if they remain on the property, and that structures "found in the property will be destroyed and thrown away." City officials were alerted to the camp and its reportedly unsanitary conditions by a security company that the city pays to patrol outlying areas for migrant encampments and other trespassers.

Some 900 migrants from El Trapiche, Oaxaca work in North San Diego county nurseries. Their remittances sustain the isolated village but, using 3-1 matching funds from the Mexican government, plus foundation support, El Trapiche residents have built a greenhouse to grow flowers for local markets in Oaxaca. Other villages in Oaxaca produce hand-woven wool carpets for local markets. Experience with remittance-financed projects suggests that training and technical expertise may be more important than money to ensure success. Flowers must be of high quality and carpets must have designs that buyers want, in order for remittance-financed products to produce stay-at-home development.

Riverside County was accused of not doing enough to provide farm worker housing. The county estimated that farm workers earn $7 an hour or $14,000 a year. The county and advocates cited an estimate of 34,991 migrant and seasonal farm workers, a number that is at least twice too large. It was prepared for the Migrant Health Program, and utilizes a "methodology" that produces far too many MSFWs, from two in Sierra county to 146,000 in Fresno county. http://www.bphc.hrsa.gov/migrant/enumeration/enumerationstudy.htm

A $135,000 grant was awarded to the UFW-affiliated National Farm Workers Service Center to help build nine homes for low-income families at the center's Casas San Miguel project near Ventura Avenue and B Street in southwest Fresno. Each of the single-family homes will include three bedrooms, two bathrooms and two-car garages, and cost about $100,000 each.

The Cabrillo Economic Development Corp. plans to build 52 apartments and six single-family homes in Villa Cesar Chavez at 381 E. Hueneme Road near Saviers Road in Oxnard. The median sales price of homes in western Ventura county was $349,811 in October 2001.

Yuba City. In summer 2001, some newspaper stories cited empty migrant housing as an indicator of labor shortages. The Richland Housing Center in Yuba City had seven vacant three-bedroom apartments in July 2001, the third consecutive year that not all of the heavily subsidized housing was filled; the director attributed the vacancies to lack of work in the area. In adjacent Yuba county, some 70 workers were found living at 8010 Highway 70 in District 10, just north of Marysville; they paid $1 to $2 a day to live in an abandoned barn while picking peaches and other crops.

This area of the mid-Sacramento Valley grows, for instance, peaches that are canned. Several canners closed, and those that remain have demanded hand-picked peaches so that US canned peaches can "compete on the world market"- growers receive $45 to $55 a ton less for machine-picked peaches.

The Los Angeles Times on November 21, 2001 reported that discrimination by immigrant landlords and apartment managers against other immigrants and against African-Americans is increasing. The San Fernando Valley Fair Housing Council sent matched testers-people with similar incomes, for instance, but of different races and ethnicities-seeking apartments, and found that immigrant managers often favor others from the same country. One conclusion: "no matter if the managers are white, black, Hispanic or Asian, these folks don't have a clue about state or federal fair housing law."

Dole. Dole Food Co. laid off 1,900 workers in February 2001, and was sued in November 2001 for not giving the workers severance pay or a 60-day notice of the layoffs, as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act. Dole, citing low returns, put 5,000 acres of orchards and vineyards up for sale. Chicago attorney Paul Strauss said that the class-action suit would apply to between 300 and 800 former Dole employees, and that the two months in severance pay would range from $3,750 to $6,000 each.

One laid-off worker said he earned $400 to $550 a week when he was directly employed by Dole to pick table grapes, and $200 to $300 a week in 2001, when he was employed by a farm labor contractor to harvest grapes on Dole land.

FLCs. The California Supreme Court, in Camargo v Tjaarda Dairy, ruled that a worker brought to a farm by a farm labor contractor can sue only the FLC if he is injured while working, not the farmer where he happens to be working, provided the FLC has workers' compensation insurance. The ruling is likely to encourage farmers to ensure that FLCs who bring workers to their farms have workers' compensation insurance. If they do not, and there is an injury, the farmer where the worker is injured can be sued.

Assembly Bill 1338 requires farm-labor contractors to pass tests and then to complete eight hours of continuing education annually in order to renew their licenses. The Training Institute, affiliated with Fresno City College, will charge $245 for the classes. About 700 of California's 1,200 registered FLCs are in the San Joaquin Valley.

Dennis Pollock, "Classes on farm labor law to begin," Fresno Bee, January 16, 2002. Agnes Roletti, "End of migrant-camp razing urged," San Diego Union-Tribune, November 22, 2001. Agnes Roletti, "Migrant camp removal stirs protest," San Diego Union-Tribune, November 10, 2001. Ronald D. White, "Grape Grower Sued Over Harassment," Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2001.