Workers of San Quintin Valley: No longer willing to be invisible

Workers of San Quintin Valley: No longer willing to be invisible

by: David Bacon
January 22 2016

On March 29, 2015, U.S. photographer and labour activist David Bacon followed a group of farm workers in the San Quintín Valley in the Mexican state of Baja California as they marched to the U.S. border.

Thousands of workers - who pick strawberries and tomatoes for the U.S. market - went on a two-week strike in protest over their poverty wages. These farm workers, who mainly come from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and make up the bulk of the agricultural workforce in Baja, are paid about U.S. $9 a day; they were demanding wages of about 300 pesos, or U.S. $24.

Growers bring over whole families, particularly Mixtec and Triqui indigenous peoples, to live in labour camps and housing notorious for poor conditions. The whole operation is reminiscent of the maquiladora [export assembly plants] industry, transplanted into agriculture.

The big companies walked out of negotiations with the workers March, and signed contracts with government-affiliated unions that were not on strike. They promised 15 percent pay rises for the workers, which is much less than what they were asking for.

The biggest U.S. distributor, Driscoll's, claimed its main grower, BerryMex, pays higher rates of U.S. $5 to US$9 per hour - a highly dubious claim, according to activists. The growers want to move towards a code of conduct that avoids any negotiation or contracts with the striking union, the Alianza. At the same time, growers brought more workers up from southern Mexico to break the strike.

More:
http://peoplesworld.org/workers-of-san-quintin-valley-no-longer-willing-to-be-invisible/