Fur Flies over Proposed Increase in Farmworker Minimum Wage

Based on the tone and tenor of Tuesday’s discussion about a proposal to increase the countywide minimum wage for farmworkers to $26 an hour, as demanded by farmworker advocates, there’s no acceptable middle way allowing the supervisors to cut the proverbial baby in half. It was equally clear that the supervisors — to the extent they said anything — would much rather focus on easing the rules and regulations governing the development of farmworker housing than passing a $10-an-hour wage increase that growers and farmers representatives said will destroy their industry.

Claire Weinman of the Grower-Shipper Association said if the wage increase advocated by farmworker advocates were to be passed, 16,000 ag jobs would quickly disappear. Other growers said they face a battery of rising costs and stiff competition from growers in Mexico, Peru, and other countries. A wage increase, they insisted, would cause them serious economic damage.

Farmworkers and organizers pushing for the wage increase said they were frustrated, saddened, and disappointed that the supervisors were not taking to heart the testimony provided by 400 farmworkers at a special workshop held two weeks ago.

“I should not have to work 60 hours a week to scrape by,” one farmworker stated.

More farmworker housing, they said, was a long-term solution for an acute problem demanding immediate relief. And only a small percentage of farmworkers, they added, would benefit.

At the hearing a couple of weeks ago, supervisors Joan Hartmann and Das Williams heard how three families often had to jam into a single unit. Often, they were told, no kitchen was included.

A researcher from UC Merced stated that 25 percent of farmworkers experienced some form of wage theft; 19 percent reportedly experienced retaliation for asking for higher pay.

Hartmann and Williams expressed genuine sympathy for the economic hardships the workers endured.

“Their stresses,” Williams stated, “are not temporary.”

But both also expressed an awareness of the economic challenges confronted by growers. One grower, a fourth-generation farmer with crops in Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo, stated he’d move his operation to S.L.O. if the wage increase were passed.

Hartmann and Williams said they will be touring the farmworker housing projects that have gone up in Ventura County in hopes of discovering how Ventura can make such housing happen where Santa Barbara has failed.

The supervisors took no action. On Tuesday’s agenda was only a verbal report from Hartmann and Williams about the special workshop.

Both the growers and farmworkers showed up and expressed themselves with a vehement sense of economic urgency. Hartmann pushed the housing alternative because high housing costs accounted for so much of the economic privation experienced by farmworkers. She also suggested childcare support for farmworkers’ families and training programs that would enable the children of farmworkers to achieve better paying supervisorial positions. 

With Williams stepping off the council early next year, the farmworkers will be losing the strongest supporter they now have. The board will revisit the issue at its meeting on December 17. Both sides will be present.