Legal Farm workers on Visa have a Fed Min. Wage of $8.54

[wakeme2008]

Plus a place to sleep inspected by the Feds.

This was a very good front page and two more full pages inside this mornings (Sunday) Roanoke Times.

Very good piece on these men that spend 8 months a year up in Va working and the homecoming for 4 months in Mexico.

http://blogs.roanoke.com/immigration/homecoming/



Homecoming

By Beth Macy

SAUTA, MEXICO – The moment Adrian Castellon steps out of a taxi and onto the bumpy, stone-studded road in front of his house, he is no longer a Franklin County tobacco picker.

After a three-day bus ride from Franklin County to his Mexican village of Sauta, Adrian Castellon sweeps up his 5-year-old daughter, Maria Elena, as he walks in the front door. For the past 17 years, Adrian has left in the spring for work on a Franklin County tobacco farm and returned to his family in November.

For the next four months, he will not live crammed into a cinderblock bunkhouse with seven other Mexican field hands.

Here in this dusty town in western Mexico, Adrian is part of the village gentry, a respected family man with one of the largest homes.

..cut..
Meanwhile, Chava and the others were putting in 60-hour workweeks on Johnny and Sharon Angell’s Penhook tobacco farm. Following federal guidelines, the guest workers make $8.54 an hour and sleep in Department of Labor-inspected housing, which translated to bunk beds in one cement-floor room — except for crew chief Adrian, who got the lone double bed.

..more at link...

[fed-up]

1. below is a working link-

http://blogs.roanoke.com/immigration/