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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Is This Farm Using Guest Workers as Strike Breakers?
http://www.thenation.com/article/179651/why-farm-using-guest-workers-strike-breakersMigrant farm workers on strike against Sakuma Farms, a large berry grower in Washington State (Photo: David Bacon)
In 2001 Rosario Ventura came to the United States from Mexico and went to work in Washington State, picking blueberries for Sakuma Farms. I was expecting a different type of work here, she recalls, but this is all there is. I thought I would save up something here and go back, but I havent been able to do it. It is too difficult.
The first job she had was pruning blueberry bushes. It was really hard. After cutting the branches, theyd spring back and hit me in the face or all over. It really hurt. She stuck it out though, working summers in Washington, and in the winter trying to find work further south in California, near Fresno.
Two years after she arrived from Oaxaca, she met Isidro Silva in the Sakuma fields. Although they belong to two different indigenous ethnic groupsshe speaks Triqui and he speaks Mixtecothey got married. For the next ten years they made the trip back and forth each year with their children.
You dont get enough work, and what little you earn is quickly used up, Ventura explains. My children are growing. They need clothes, all of that. We have to pay the rent, bills and everything we eat. We dont ever have enough money, because it runs out like water.
joeglow3
(6,228 posts)How many Americans did they do this to? Now they are seeing the shit wages they accepted and what it did to others. While protesting getting fucked over, are they apologizing to those families they fucked over?
xchrom
(108,903 posts)you're blaming the victim?
joeglow3
(6,228 posts)These jobs DID once offer what they are fighting for. These jobs offered these benefits until illegals were working for less. What was created was a spiral downward. Now, these people are seeing the error of what they did and are demanding a return to the benefits once offered by the job.....only for THEM and not the people who had the jobs to begin with.
As the son of a union drywaller who was on the receiving end of the shaft in the 90's/00's, yes I blame multiple people. Clearly, the majority of my blame is on the government and companies, but I also blame the people who agreed to cut the legs out from underneath workers and are now complaining THEY don't get the benefits previously offered.
malaise
(267,784 posts)divide and rule