Pepper Farm Workers Find New Minimum Wage Elusive

FRESNO — They began gathering in the field even before dawn, more than 200 farm workers from Texas, Mexico and towns in the central San Joaquin Valley. They had come to pick chili peppers and had hoped to earn the new state minimum wage of $4.25 an hour.

But instead of receiving the hourly wage, the workers found that they were paid a piece rate of only 90 cents for each 5-gallon bucket of peppers. They said it was physically impossible to pick enough peppers to make the minimum wage. When that happens, state law requires that the grower make up any difference, but that did not happen here.

A worker receiving the minimum wage would get $34 for an eight-hour day. But the workers here said their pay fell far short of that amount, and several workers told a reporter that they were making less than $13 a day.

“The situation now is wide open to the misuse of workers,” asserted Betty Vallejo, assistant manager of the Fresno Employment Development Department. “We absolutely have more workers now than we did last year, and we don’t have the jobs to fill them.”

While it is not clear that violations of the new minimum wage law are common, workers’ advocates say a convergence of factors this summer will make it difficult to enforce the new minimum-wage law here.

First of all, workers, lured by the promise of higher wages, are flowing into the state from as far away as Texas. Illegal workers are also migrating here from Mexico to try to qualify for a new agricultural legalization program. California farmers find themselves competing with growers from other states that are still required to pay only the federal minimum wage of $3.35 an hour. Finally, the agencies that enforce the law say they simply lack the resources to do so.

‘We’re Seeing Abuses’

“The minimum wage law is less than a week old and already we’re seeing abuses,” said Gloria Hernandez, a community organizer with California Rural Legal Assistance, which acts as a legal advocate for workers. “Just wait until the harvest really starts up, then see what happens.”

However, Bill Allison, manager of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, said there is no reason to believe that the vast majority of growers are not obeying the law.

“I don’t think there are any more growers paying less than minimum wage than employers in the city paying less than minimum wage,” he said. There has been an extensive media campaign to educate growers about the new minimum-wage law in the last few weeks, he said, and “there is no excuse for anyone not to know about this law.”

Hernandez and others said adequate personnel to enforce the minimum-wage law are lacking.

“When you speed, the CHP (California Highway Patrol) gives you a ticket,” she said. “Where are the enforcers of this law”?

The state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, part of the state Department of Industrial Relations, is responsible for enforcing state labor laws. But there are only three state employees who take complaints in the office here about minimum-wage violations, state officials said.

In addition, there are only three other workers who go into the field to do investigations of labor violations here.

“And we cover all employees in six counties,” said investigator Tony Miller of the Bureau of Field Enforcement, a unit of the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. “I’m not talking just agriculture. I’m talking everything from doctors’ offices to talent agencies to government employees.”

When asked if he could enforce the law with his current staff, John Rayman, senior deputy in the regional office of the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement here, answered, “Hell, no!”

To complicate matters, Rayman said Miller’s field investigative office is responsible for minimum-wage violations. Miller said Rayman’s office had that assignment.

‘Afraid to Complain’

However, both officials said no one has filed a complaint about violations of the new minimum-wage law.

“All kinds of people, including farm workers, are afraid to complain because they need a job,” Rayman said.

That unwillingness to complain was apparent in the chili field on the western edge of town early Wednesday. Though most of the workers gathered there are in the country legally and do not fear deportation, they did fear being fired for complaining. The problem, they said, is that there is no other work. The chili harvest comes after the onion harvest and before the grape picking.

“The forewoman gets mad if you say anything,” one experienced worker said in English. “She’ll run you off. And just look at all the workers here to take your place. You’d rather eat than not eat at all. That’s why we’re here.”

As he spoke, another worker chimed in from the next row in Spanish.

“But you can’t even buy chilis at this rate,” he said.

Everyone within hearing range laughed.

The buckets that the workers use hold five gallons and perhaps 200 small chili peppers each. To earn the equivalent of the minimum wage, one would have to pick perhaps 800 or 1,000 peppers an hour, one at a time by hand. None of the 50 or 60 workers interviewed were even averaging three buckets an hour.

Apparent Violation

One family of six--including an 11-year-old girl working in apparent violation of child labor laws--had picked 65 buckets for a day’s total of $58.50, less than the legal minimum for two workers. They were all working under a single Social Security number.

The labor contractor who hired these workers, Filadelfo Martinez, posted a job order with the state Employment Development Department, according to Vallejo, and signed a statement guaranteeing minimum wage for all employees. However, Vallejo said, no employee had complained and therefore she was unaware of any violations.

When interviewed in the field, Martinez said: “This isn’t an hourly wage, what we’re paying. It’s a contract. And a contract is a contract. It’s impossible that everyone makes the minimum.

“Besides, things are worse in garlic. You can earn only $7 or $8 a day sometimes in garlic. If they don’t like it here, the workers can go elsewhere.”

He said he was earning a 30% commission from owner Owen Azlin based on the workers’ salaries. He said Azlin had set the piece rate.

Angered by Question

Azlin drove into the field at mid-morning. Visibly angered by a question about the minimum wage, Azlin said, “Honey, we just hope they’re making it. If they can’t pick four buckets an hour, they shouldn’t be here. But don’t ask me those questions until I think a bit.”

Four buckets would net $3.60, 65 cents under the minimum.

Asked a while later about the same issue, Azlin said, “Everyone doesn’t have to make the minimum.” When informed that growers do, according to the law, have to make up the difference if piece rates do not yield the minimum, the grower shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they do.”

Then he ordered the reporter to leave his field.

“You’re confusing the workers with those questions,” he said.

His workers said they were angry and frustrated but not surprised by low wages. Several said they were used to working under conditions in which laws were routinely violated.

One worker pointed to a single visible portable toilet to serve the more than 200 workers. Federal law requires a toilet for every 40 workers.

Asked about the toilet facilities, Azlin responded, “There’s a bathroom in the house” they can use. He motioned to his own home nearly a block away.

The workers here said they had not received pay stubs, as required by law. The stubs are especially important to undocumented immigrants who need them as proof in seeking working permits.

Not Told

The law requires that workers be told what they are earning, but some many workers found out only at the end of the day what the piece rate was.

“It’s always the same,” said Manuel Lima, who said he had been working in the central San Joaquin Valley for eight years. “ We’ve never made the minimum (wage), and I wonder if we ever will.”