Background
Farmworkers in the US can be beaten for picking the wrong-colored tomato or taking a drink of water. And pay at the end of the day is not a given. Oxfam seeks to expose sweatshop conditions and human rights violations in America’s fields.
"A lot of talk goes on that slavery occurs because people in other countries are desperate and vulnerable, and they need to leave their homes-which is part of it, yes…But it is the US's receiving country conditions that allows slavery to flourish in the workplace once they are here."
—Laura Germino, Co-founder, Coalition of Immokalee Workers
The conditions of which Germino speaks-and which Oxfam seeks to change-include:
- Lack of Legal Protections—Farmworkers have long been excluded from US labor laws. New Deal protections such as child labor laws, benefits, overtime pay, and minimum wage have never applied to workers in the fields.
- Extreme Poverty—A farmworker receives 42 cents for a 32-pound tub of tomatoes, a wage that has not changed in 25 years. This is effectively a 60 percent pay cut, creating desperate poverty among farmworkers.
- Job Instability—The corporate trend to hire temporary, contract, or day workers creates fertile grounds for abuse. Where there are more workers than jobs, farmworkers vying for work are likely to accept low pay and abusive conditions.
Oxfam seeks to turn these grounds for abuse into grounds for change.