Andrew Kramer, "More English Speakers Seek Help at Migrants' Clinics," Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2004. Ira Dreyfuss, "US, Japan to hold new talks on beef ban that followed mad cow case," Associated Press, April 13, 2004. In Washington state, the bloom on cherry, pear and apple trees came earlier and closer together than usual, leading to predictions of labor shortages because "the demand for labor could overlap more significantly than in the past." It charges $250 a month, or 30 percent of the migrant's earnings, for a three-bedroom apartment. The federal government provides almost half of the funds most clinics receive the balance is from state funds and patient fees.Ĭatholic Charities built 30 more units of farm worker housing in Sandy, Oregon, with $4 million in USDA funds. In 2003, about 70 percent of the 68,000 clinic patients spoke English. Health care coverage under the Oregon Health Plan has been reduced because of budget cuts, encouraging more nonfarm workers to seek help at the 20 federally subsidized migrant worker clinics. The UFW agreed with farmers that imports of asparagus from Peru and elsewhere are reducing production and employment in Washington. The UFW supported a resolution in the Washington Senate to exempt asparagus from the Andean Trade Preference Act in 1991. The US government fined DeCoster $3.6 million in July 1996 after an investigation revealed conditions in work areas and worker housing that labor officials called some of the worst they had seen. When the settlement was announced in June 2002, plaintiffs praised DeCoster for improvements made since the suit was filed and hailed the agreement as a milestone in a new era of cooperation between management and labor. The Big Four meatpackers control 82 percent of the slaughter market, up from 36 percent in 1980, and the rancher's share of each dollar consumers spend on beef has shrunk from 60 cents to 40 cents.ĭeCoster Egg Farms near Turner, Maine paid a $3.2 million settlement in March 2004 to some 1,500 Mexican migrant workers who sued in 1998, charging racial discrimination in housing and working conditions. About 10 percent of US beef is exported.Ī jury found that meatpacking giant Tyson Foods' IBP division helped to fix prices and ordered Tyson to pay $1.3 billion. Nebraska has about 26,400 meatpacking workers, about five percent of the 538,000 total in the US, and about 10 percent were laid off in January 2004. After the discovery of mad cow disease in Washington, many countries banned imports of US meat, prompting layoffs in meatpacking plants. There are 150 training programs in the US that supply agricultural trainees and a total 1,350 programs that admit foreigners for US training. State labor officials order Keli to pay the trainees additional wages.Īnother firm, Communicating for Agriculture in Bloomington, Minnesota says that it requires farmers to provide room and board and $600 a month for 55-hour-per-week workweeks. The trainee's agreement allowed Keli to keep $489 a month, but Keli kept all of the farmer's payment except $850 a month. In one case, a farmer paid Keli $1,750 for a trainee who had a 66-hour work week on a dairy farm. Russian immigrant Leonid Katsnelson and his Keli Global Group (LTM Int'l) in Madison, Wisconsin used a federal exchange program to bring at least 600 foreign trainees to work on 100 farms in 12 states, and is now being investigated for misleading trainees and not returning farmers' deposits.
Olive says that it is up to individual farmers to decide whether to recognize FLOC. and its farmer-cucumber suppliers, under which FLOC would be recognized as bargaining agent for the farmers' workers. FLOC, wants a three-way labor agreement with the Mt. The Toledo, Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee continues to picket stores that sell pickles from North Carolina-based Mt.
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