Farm workers forced out of Migrant Housing - California

Many migrant farmworkers living in California-run housing would settle full time in their communities if they could find affordable housing. Their children struggle to keep up in school as a result of frequent moves.

This is what The Sacramento Bee learned during a year-long investigation into California’s 24 migrant farmworker housing centers, which provide subsidized units for seasonal workers.

Reporters visited seven centers in Northern California, the San Joaquin Valley and on the Central Coast. They surveyed 150 families about living in housing and moving every year. Here are their findings.

Thousands of children living in the centers must bear the brunt of the annual moves. Most bounce from one school to another every few months and receive instruction in two different languages. Read more about these students here.

California farmworkers struggle to find housing — yet the state lets thousands of affordable units sit empty for three to six months every year. Read more about their housing here.

Support from readers like you helps us create quality, local journalism. Subscribe today to The Sacramento Bee: https://sacbee.com/subscribe

WHY FARMWORKER LEGALIZATION FAILED

The Reality Check: WHY FARMWORKER LEGALIZATION FAILED: WHY FARMWORKER LEGALIZATION FAILED The Farm Workforce Modernization Act's failure to become law reveals critical divisions within the im...

What Was the Life of This Guest Worker Worth?

What Was the Life of This Guest Worker Worth?

Thank a Farm Worker

This Thanksgiving thank a farm worker

Happy Thanksgiving. We want to extend our warm thanks to you for being our loyal supporter and helping farm workers. As our families prepare to gather around the Thanksgiving table, we want to ask everyone to take a second to thank the men and women who labor to put the food on our Thanksgiving tables, and whose labor feeds us all year long. These hard working people labor day after day behind the scenes in heat, cold and rain to harvest the food that ends up in supermarkets and eventually on your table.

Join us in recognizing them and letting them know we appreciate everything they do, by signing the online Thanksgiving card our organizers will share with our members at their various farms and dairies. Please take an extra 30 seconds and add your own personal message.

UFW members are marking this Thanksgiving holiday season with a campaign they launched at their latest gathering of worker leadership. Members from Coachella, Ventura County, San Joaquin Valley, Monterey County, Sonoma County, and Oregon and Washington states have taken their message about the benefits of having a union contract out to their communities and social media. “From Our Hands to Your Tables” highlights their stories and the work they do every day.

To follow this campaign go to: https://www.facebook.com/unitedfarmworkers/ and https://twitter.com/UFWupdates or look for our #ThankAFarmWorker and #WeFeedYou hashtags on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

Assemblyman Ken Cooley - Vote for Farm worker justice

The Assembly did not vote on the bill on Thursday.

an editorial in the Sacramento Bee
By Marcos Breton
mbreton@sacbee.com

This is the week that California’s progressive values will be put to the test. Are these values genuine? Or do they exclude the state’s most vulnerable workers because legislators typically eager to support labor causes will deny laborers who are poor and of Mexican origin?

That’s where we are in California. It’s 2016, and we’re still arguing about granting the basic right of overtime pay for agricultural workers who labor beyond an eight-hour workday.

A watered-down version of the bill, AB 1066, loaded with concessions, barely squeezed through the state Senate on Monday and is headed to a critical vote Thursday in the Assembly. That’s the same body that shot down the original bill in May.

The bill, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat, would extend to farmworkers the same overtime rights as every other hourly wage group in California. That means getting paid time and a half for every hour they work over eight in a day or 40 in a week. Working more than 12 hours a day would mean double pay.

So Thursday is a judgment day of sorts in California. How progressive are we really? How much longer will the bluest of states perpetuate an injustice rooted in a shameful past?