Thread by @UFWupdates

Average CA piece rate pay for parsley work is around $1.90 per crate of 60 bundles.

Many folks are shocked by piece rates, and ask how it’s legal to pay workers less than $2 per crate. Before we do reply-guy math, let’s talk about labor law!
#WeFeedYou

The Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938. It shaped basic labor protections most workers take for granted. Minimum wage, overtime, banning use of child labor... Laws to protect workers from harm and kids from exploitation.

Farm workers were excluded. (Domestic workers, too.)

The 1935 NLRA* had given workers the right to collective action and to form a union to protect themselves and bargain with their employer.

Farm workers had been excluded from THIS most basic set of labor rights too.

(*You can google the acronyms.)

Ending risky, starvation-wage labor conditions and preventing children from exploitation was a decades in the making. When our country negotiated a ‘New Deal,’ certain kinds of work was excluded.

Southern Congressmen refused to pass laws that threatened “established practices.”

Today- right now- federal labor law permits children at the age of 12 to legally work unlimited hours on farms of any size with parental permission, if they don’t miss school.

(There’s no minimum age for kids to work on small farms.)

hrw.org/news/2018/12/0…

Farm workers do incredibly dangerous work, and this work is essential. Why aren’t they protected?

Why did it take decades to make even small changes to the working conditions of the men, women and children who work in the fields?

What “established practice” is being protected?

State laws provide a varying level of protection, like when CA farmworkers won the right to overtime protections in 2016.

That’s 78 years later than other workers.

Ending “established practice” isn’t easy. Especially one as deeply ingrained as slavery.
ufw.org/ab-1066-phase-…

Yes, this thread is oversimplified. There are lots of ways to learn about the nuance of these laws, including our website.

Join our email list (top of the page) so we can reach you when we need help ending “established practices.” (Be sure to confirm!)
ufw.org

Look up your state on this interactive map, and think about what “established practices” the farm workers around you are experiencing when they work to feed this country.
#WeFeedYou

fjlaborlawmap.org

Ok, time for folks to extrapolate wildly on what this works out to hourly.

Please, we beg you, consider the time spent crating, carrying crates to the road, stacking, returning to the row etc before you confidently declare this worker is making $ XYZ/hr.

(Please.)

Final note:
Amidst the pandemic, the Trump admin is pushing to REDUCE the wages of some farm workers. During COVID19, it's just... remarkably cruel.

Read more about the fight against farmworker wage cuts (and donate) right here:
ufw.org/h2a720.