Panel Discussion Highlights Plight of California's Strawberry Workers

Four months after the "Great Grape Referendum" attracted nationwide attention and ignited a flurry of campus activism, the fight to improve working conditions on fruit farms was again the subject of discussion last night.

The plight of strawberry workers drew 40 students to a panel discussion entitled "Farmworker Facts and Fiction" featuring students, faculty and United Farm Workers (UFW) activists.

The panelists discussed worker conditions in California strawberry fields and attempts to unionize workers--much the same issues that galvanized the campus last fall.

Miriam T. Burgos '98, a RAZA member active in the grape debate and one of the students involved in organizing last night's panel, said students often forget how directly the condition of agricultural workers impacts their lives.

"The conditions are real and important to our lives as consumers of producers. We need to be informed and we are not going to get information directly from the industries because they have images to protect," Burgos said.

She was echoed by another panel member, Sergio J. Campos '00, president of RAZA and former chair of the Latino Political Union, who urged the audience to consider the human implications of the issue.

Campos called workers' rights "a human issue in which people's dreams and wishes are at stake."

Also serving on the panel were three self-described "worker activists," who have long been involved in attempts to bring strawberry worker concerns to national attention.

Candeloria Llanas and Ignacio Alejo--two California strawberry workers on the panel--said in their experience, workers have no health insurance, clean water or adequate bathroom facilities. They said workers are paid an average of $5.75 an hour, and wages are fixed.

Alejo said he and his family of four live in a one-bedroom trailer.

"There is no justice; all people have the right to live as human beings," Alejo said through a translator. "We are not saying that we want to rob the company, only that they [should] allow us to take care of our children."

But some said the picture offered by the UFW workers was unfair.

Gary Caloroso of the Strawberry Workers and Farmers Alliance contacted The Crimson yesterday and said the UFW has presented the public with a "misleading picture."

"Strawberry Workers and Farmers Alliance organized to protect the open market. The decision for and against unionization is up to the workers," Caloroso said.

Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics John Womack, Jr. agreed that workers legally have the right to unionize but said they are not always presented the opportunity to do so.

Sister Tess Browne of the National Farmworker Ministry told the crowd she had been inspired by the civil rights movement.

"I saw that it was the same struggle in the Southwest. Like in the South, if we have faith and keep struggling we will achieve something," Browne said.

Womack and Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Afro-American Studies Cornel R. West '74 encouraged students to get involved in the struggle to improve working conditions on America's farms.

West said students should feel solidarity with others who are suffering.

"We are here to respond to the human call, human being to human being," he said.

Those who organized the panel said the goal was to make students aware of the ways that they can become active in UFW movement for worker rights.

Campos said he hopes to encourage supermarket chains to pledge not to buy produce from distributors that do not have unionized contracts.

Yet both Campos and UFW organizer Daisy M. Rooks said they are not advocating a strawberry boycott.

"We do not want a boycott, but we do want to send a message to distributors to stop intimidating their workers," Rooks said.

For Daniel M. Morgan '99, a member of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM), the panel offered the opportunity to hear about farm worker conditions from the workers themselves.

He said that the voice of the workers was noticeably absent from last fall's grape debate and their voice was "sorely needed in discourse about the grape referendum."

In another reference to last fall's controversy, Justin B. Wood '98-'99, also a member of PSLM, said he was very disappointed that last night's debate did not draw more students who had been active in the grape debate.

"I think it's unconscionable that no members of the grape coalition showed up to hear experiences of California strawberry workers," he said.