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Edited on Fri Dec-29-06 07:31 PM by haele
I heard the "lady" on Hartman's show - and with every word out of her mouth, I remember the PBS special I saw as a child in the mid-70's about poverty and sharecropping in the south back-country - it focused on the culture of the contemporary peach orchard workers. Working, of course on a "non-union" orchard - it was mentioned that due to the AFW boycotts in California, union members were not encouraged to apply at most orchards in Georgia and any attempt to unionize blackballed you and your family.
These men and their families generally worked an orchard for 3 months. They were hired because their "daddies and mommas" worked the same orchard and their family was considered reliable. Of course, most of them had to move on to another temporary job, because, of course, after harvest and the peaches got shipped off to the processing plant, there was no reason to have a large crew on hand for 9 months, right? Since there were other crops that needed harvesting after the peach orchards finished their harvest, there was always the next job to go to. If a worker knew the "system", one could have steady work for a good 10 months out of the year between plantings and harvest.
They also supposedly worked for good wages (at the time - I think it was the equivalent of a "salary" that broke down to around $3 an hour for a 40 hour work-week, when the minimum wage was sitting around $1.95 an hour). Of course, they would work an average of 70 to 80 hours a week. With no over-time differential, because, of course, they were "salaried". By contract, they were entitled to a bonus after they finished the harvest, if the harvest was good and there was a decent profit, but, of course, that wasn't guaranteed.
They also had "medical" - there was a basic un-manned clinic with an on-call doctor that would drop by occasionally to check on the general health of the community.
They were housed "free of charge" in a 3 room, 2 window cabin with basic utilities - water and power in which the cameras went into an empty cabin to show what the worker started with. The rooms were the kitchen, the bath, and the living room/bedroom. The furnishings in these cabins were three overhead lights, a sink and counter, toilet, small bath (basically a washtub with a faucet), one twin bed and one chair and small table. 2 outlets, one in the living room, one in the kitchen. No telephone hookup. Sounds sparse but reasonable if you were single working there on a seasonal job, right?
However -
Most workers had families. Wife, one to four kids. All of whom, even babies, had to pay some sort of occupancy rent if they didn't also work. All living in that one little 3 room cabin.
The workers could not bring their vehicles on the property without paying daily rent for a parking spot on a side lot. Since gasoline was not easily available for purchase and there was no where else around to park, they usually left the family truck, van, or station wagon at the storage lot until harvest was over. Many workers took the Greyhound and walked to the orchard to work.
The workers were required to "rent" their stove, refrigerator and hot water heater, as well as any furniture, mattresses, linens, dishes, household goods they might need if they hadn't brought them. Any repairs that needed to be done in the cabin, they had to pay for, whether it was their doing, mother nature, or normal wear and tear. Any damage found in the cabin - even if it was there before, such as a cracked window or broken doorknob, before they moved on had to be paid for.
If they needed health care, they had to pay the orchard for the doctor visit, even though it was less if the doctor was there on one of his six one hour visits to the camp during harvest. If the doctor stayed late, the workers that were seeing him after the hour was up got charged the same as if the doctor was called out on an emergency visit.
The orchard was about good ways out from the closest town, but there was a company store on site for the workers, so they shopped there at the store for basic groceries and other basic sundries such as toilet paper or toothpaste and generic work clothes. The camp phone was there. If they needed, say, shoes or a jacket, they either had to take off work to go into town or borrow from someone else there.
Even though there was a "church" area for sundays and the one sacrificial babysitter (usually a nursing new mother)to care for the toddlers and babies during work hours, there was no school on site, and of course, so the kids had nothing to do except to work with mom and dad and hope to be "home schooled" after work was over, because of course, it cost the family to have any members of the family not work.
The profiled migrant working family of 4 workers and one babe, that had gotten there with around $20 in pocket had a little over $100 after 3 months of work when they left that orchard - to go on to the next job. Theft was a major problem in the camps; most workers didn't have the ability to open up a savings account and would keep their family savings hidden with any personal belongings they had - which usually meant the majority of migrant workers would lose everything within any two year period due to theft or accidental loss and could never save more than a thousand or so during their lifetime.
The profiled single migrant worker, an older man who "knew the system" and did not rent or purchase anything beyond the basics, fixed the door on his cabin himself, treated himself with borrowed needle, thread, and whiskey when he cut himself badly and was shoeless by the time he left had about the same amount.
The workers were pretty much all brown or black. The occasional white face was seen in as the owners, the doctor, the "permanent" orchard staff (overseers?) and the one young alcoholic who had declared that he had so screwed up his life, this was the only living left to him.
This show had burned itself into my brain with the sheer injustice of the migrant worker's life. These people worked like dogs struggling to survive, yet they could do no more than survive. Meanwhile, the orchard owners were making pretty good profits for themselves and their investors.
I used to drive by the strawberry fields and citrus and avocado orchards on my way to work in the 80's - 90's it looked to be pretty much the same then for Californian migrant workers. Spring and fall would be when you would see close to a hundred workers out in the fields. Small rows of shacks for them to live in, one main building that looked to be a mix of an outdoor market. These people would be working from sunrise to well after sunset, 7 days a week, men, women and children who looked to be as young as 10 or so.
I think that if so little had been done up through the mid 90's, there probably hasn't been much of a change - just $10 an hour - traditionally paid in scrip to use in the camp until the harvest is in and then whatever remains is converted into cash - that probably actually ends up being around $8 a 10 hour workday when all the little barely legal employer fees and extras are tacked on.
Less, in fact than the $16 a day a friend's daughter made working as a "trustee" at a prison electronics manufacturing factory in Chino while she was in on a bogus 3 strikes charge for 7 years. At least she didn't have to pay for her food and medical - and she had a library, educational benefits, and TV, unlike the migrant workers I saw...
Yeah, no American will work like that - without Unionizing to insure that the worker is treated fairly, paid in cash instead of scrip, and Company Store won't own the paycheck after all is said and done. And that's what the plantation owner culture doesn't want to have happen - being forced to prove, with accurate time cards and payroll - what they're actually paying their workers. If you hire "guest workers", breasaros, illegals, whatever - they aren't usually around - or can be made not to be around - to make complaints by the time the regulators become curious about the books.
Haele
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