Ripe for abuse
Farmworkers say organic growers don't always treat them as well as they do your food

US News Nation & World 4/22/02
By Kit R. Roane

Just off California Route 1, on a rise above the Pacific Ocean, Jim Cochran and Juan Barranco amble through rows of organic strawberries, their rough hands plucking the ripe fruit, their eyes scouring the leaves for signs of decay. The two men have been working together for 15 years, and neither would have it any other way. "I've always felt that labor issues were just as important as environmental and food safety issues," says Cochran, who gives Barranco and other workers on his California farm a union wage, a pension, and medical benefits. "What's the point of growing 'clean' product when the people who perform the labor are being forced to live in terrible conditions?"

Consumers, who pay up to 50 percent more for organic fruits and vegetables, largely agree. Their perceptions are fed by an $8 billion-a-year industry that increasingly touts the organic label as a lifestyle that transcends mere food. Organic Style, a 500,000-circulation magazine, touts "socially responsible" investing; Horizon Organic, a Boulder, Colo.-based dairy, tells consumers it treats its cows with "respect and dignity"; and Whole Foods Market, one of the nation's largest organic retailers, supports organic agriculture as the best method for "protecting the environment and the farmworkers."

The assumption of many who buy organics is that growers treat their workers with as much care as they do their tender shoots and berries. In fact, Cochran's holistic approach to organic farming may be more the exception than the rule. Although organic growers, pickers, and packagers are spared the exposure to toxic pesticides they would endure on regular farms, labor inspection reports show that they often toil in dangerous, unsanitary conditions for wages that sometimes don't approach the legal minimum. "Just because you're buying organic doesn't mean the labor practices are any better at all," says former legal aid attorney Gary Restaino.

Sporadic work. It is difficult to track labor practices on organic farms, because no federal agency separates violations by type of farm and many organic producers also grow conventional crops on the same property. But Hilario Rivera's case may be typical, state labor inspectors and farm advocates say. The 41-year-old was recruited by a contractor for the Torres Labor Camp to pick fruit for Willamette River Organics, one of Oregon's biggest organic farms. At the camp, Rivera says, he was forced to buy his work tools and pay $4 a day for a bunk. Yet he was given only two hours of work on some days and none on others. When he did work, Rivera says, the camp supervisor threatened to fire anyone who asked for a break and cheated workers by undercounting bushels. He is among 34 workers suing the camp and Willamette River Organics for alleged violations of minimum wage laws.

Willamette, which settled a similar lawsuit in 1997, denies Rivera's claims and the charges in the lawsuit. "I give these men jobs, but people think that because you have an organic field that the workers should all be sitting around in lounge chairs," says Greg Pile, vice president of Willamette River Organics.

Farmworkers say their demands are far more basic. At a sprawling vineyard in Arizona, a state Labor Department memo cited a host of "credible" allegations of filthy living conditions, children under the age of 14 being employed, and supervisors threatening to shoot workers who complained. The five-page memo was provided to U.S. News. Organic farmers counter that most growers are following the law and doing the best they can in a highly competitive market. While consumers may pay a high retail markup for organic food, the big distributors and supermarket chains pay little more to farmers than what it costs to produce it. And the farmers say that what little profit they make is threatened by cheap overseas producers governed by few labor regulations. Most important, they note that federal guidelines define organic food simply as food not grown with pesticides; the guidelines say nothing substantive about labor.

It is precisely because organic farms do not use pesticides that some labor problems arise. Organic crops must be weeded far more often than crops treated with chemicals, and after California banned short-handled hoes as dangerous to workers' backs, some organic farmers sent laborers out with no tools at all, forcing them to hunch over for hours in the baking sun. Long hoes would allow workers to stand upright, but some farmers believe these tools can damage crops.

Laws' flaws. The laws that do exist are often little protection. Inspections are infrequent at conventional farms absent a formal complaint, and they are rarer still if a farm does not use pesticides. The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration has only 75 compliance officers to conduct safety and health inspections of all of the approximately 85,000 businesses in the state. Last year, the California OSHA inspected only 1,130, or about 1.3 percent, of the state's more than 87,500 agricultural establishments. These generally resulted from a complaint or accident.

Enrique Díaz Lupián, who supports a family of three on $6.50 an hour, is one worker who knows that inspections after an accident are too late. Díaz Lupián was a picker at the 120-acre Pictsweet Mushroom Farm in Salem, Ore., where workers say some still earn minimum wage after 25 years. The farm, which is owned by Louisville-based United Foods, was cited for 13 OSHA health and safety violations last year after a forklift accident severed Díaz Lupián's arm. Díaz Lupián said the company offered to pay him $2,500 for his injury, but he rejected it and filed a workers' compensation claim. United Foods, which had $163 million in sales in 2000, has said it plans to close or sell the farm and will not pay workers severance. Calls to the company were not returned.

A few organic farmers, including Cochran, are pushing the organizations that certify organic farms to go beyond the federal guidelines and adopt a labor standard that would assure customers their products are produced in an ethical way. And one of the country's largest organic processors and distributors, Cascadian Farm, recently amended many of its contracts to call for "fair and reasonable" treatment of workers. But there is little support for labor standards elsewhere. A spokesperson for Whole Food Markets said that the definition of organic had nothing to do with labor issues. And most organic farmers remain unlikely to push the issue when retailers can just as easily buy cheaper overseas. "Right now most of the farmers aren't getting minimum wage either, because it's pretty lousy out there," says Brian Leahy, head of California Certified Organic Farmers. "It's needed, but it's more than the [organic] movement can handle now."