• 
• 
  • Arts & Culture
  • City Hall
  • Environment
  • Housing & Displacement
  • Immigrant Rights
  • LGBQT
  • Poverty
  • Youth & Schools
• 
  • Features
  • News Briefs
  • Newswire
  • Headlines
• 
  • Mailing Lists
  • PhillyIMC's Wiki
  • LAVA
  • Contact us
• 
• 
• 
• 

Thousands of farmers suffer meager pay all around the country. However, one group of farmers decided to do something about it. From Immokalee, Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have risen up and taken their fate into their own hands. This travesty is so rotten, deceitful and shameful, that I feel dirty just for knowing about it, and so should you. However, this is not a new story. Ever since the great wage depression in the West during those weird times between the Great Wars, farm workers have been getting shitty wages and false security.
The name of the game is shock value. The growers know that they have workers lined up around the corner for these jobs, so they can dangle that job under their noses while they have farmers working those jobs for meager wages. Once the farmers complain about their low wages, the growers can yank the job from from under them and offer it to other farmers for lower wages.
For pre-game points, growers like to start an auction of sorts. They like to see how low they can drive wages without actually doing anything. They lay back with their hands behind their heads while workers each come forward with lower and lower wage offerings.
The grower steps out of the exit door and faces the large crowd of gathered migrant workers. "Okay," he yells, "I have some tomatoes that need pickin', how many of you want to pick 'em?" Person after person jumps to the front with an offer, only to be pushed back by someone with a lower wage offering.
"I'll work for 2 dollars a bucket!" screams an over-eager worker. His hair is grabbed from behind and thrust towards the ground in a fit of dust.
"Yeah, well I'll work for 1 dollar a bucket!" screams the violent worker. But it's of no use, because at that moment, the deal was dealt. The last farmer to speak had spoken those magnificent words:
"Hell mister, I'll work for some food and water."
The crowd moaned as he said those words, but a select few didn't, because they knew the drill. They knew that it was a lie. Once those fools worked for their promised food and drink, they would never get it. They would get some rotten fruit and 3-day-old warm water to consume in the mid-summer heat of Arizona.
However, the growers must be careful of strike. This power struggle has presented itself in every grower-famer relationship for the past 75 years. John Steinbeck's momentous novel The Grapes of Wrath, documents the strife of the migrant worker in the 1930's West. Before this novel, people had been completely oblivious or just apathetic towards the Okies and the mass relocation they were experiencing, but afterwards, they were informed about it, regardless of their views towards it. This was the first time many people had encountered any allusion to a white family’s strife and their struggles with poverty. Steinbeck constructs the plot in a way that effectively comments on the life of the poor farmer and is instrumental in showing people the necessary transformation from I to we in desperate situations. This transformation highlights the schism between the truly concerned, desperate people and the ones who only care for themselves. It highlights the division between the cooperative and competitive markets; it places people on either the side of the monster, or the side of the people.
Along with documenting the Okies’ strife and their lives in life-threatening poverty, Steinbeck also outlines the antagonism that arose between the Okies and the rest of the population. This social conflict was crucial to the formation of a natural community; one where there is a natural tendency towards cooperation and the existence of a corporate monster is unnecessary.
This antagonism still exists today between locals and migrant workers. Look at one of the most reviewed issues in politics today: immigration. The argument against our current immigration, is that too many illegal immigrants are coming in to the country and taking our jobs. However, one crucial issue is overlooked in these arguments, a massive point that leaves us all responsible. The lives of these farmers are in the hands of the growers, and they throw them around like jacks. These are not tractors we're talking about my friends, O no, these are human beings.
So tell me how this is different than slavery. This is just modern variation of slavery. Promise them the lowest wages possible and then deduct that entire wage for "expenses". This leaves the workers with no money to feed their families. When you have two children asking where the food is at the end of the week and a spouse who is completely dependent on your income, you need that paycheck. So what's to be concerned about?

Reply

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject:

Comment: *

• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image?: *

Copy the characters (respecting upper/lower case) from the image.