Farmwork

Are migrants regarded as “victims” of economical determined relationships, that should be advised or protected? Or should migration be regarded as a potentially “subversive” process of crossborder appropriation of a better living and working quality?
Nicholas Bell, member of the European Civic Forum, warned in his contribution in a conference in Crete of a too optimistic view on the “autonomous qualities” of migration, referring to his own experiences with the working conditions in the agricultural business in El Eljido (Spain) and the enormous competition between old and new groups of – often undocumented - migrants, which come there to work.

To
Die a Little: Migration and Coffee in Mexico and Central America By
Luis Hernández Navarro

Reyno
Bartolo Hernández died of heatstroke in the Arizona desert
near Yuma on May 22, 2001. He wasn’t the only Mexican farmer
who lost his life that day trying to cross the border. Thirteen of

--about 18 women who fought for their right--
In Spring 2002, eighteen women from Romania came to the town of Lampertheim, in South-West Germany as seasonal workers. They came for a harvest of asparagus famous in the region. After a month of harvest, the women realised their employer was not going to pay the contracted salary. They staged a fight to recover their money.

Our task takes place in El Condado, as the budget limits and the need of concentrating efforts and take advantage of the resorts that our workmates in SOC have already there unable us to make further interventions. The strawberry growing covers every range of militant intervention. It musn't be considered merely as a rural and isolated one. It's a chance for CGT-A to develope a global politic discours: ecology (use of fertilizers banned in the EU), food security, chemical industry, patents (the strawberry is bought to the California University, that holds its patent), rational use of land resources (against the land intensive exploitation and the monoculture), labor exploitation, "sexual violence" against working women, questioning of the special agricultural regime ("régimen especial agrario"), immigration and labor precariousness, lodging, shanty towns, social exclusion....

Spain is the world’s second biggest producer of strawberries, after the United States. One of the most important centres of this crop is the Andalusian province of Huelva which lies in the extreme south-west of the country close to the border with Portugal. Thanks to its climate, the strawberry growing season is very early in Huelva, starting in February and reaching its peak from March to May. This gives the region an almost total monopoly on the European market as all other areas produce later in the year. Around 55.000 workers are employed every year in this one region.

One of the most important centres of strawberry-production is in Spain, in the Andalusian province of Huelva and one of the crucial advantages of this sector is the low cost of labour. Around 55.000 workers are employed every year in this one region and increasingly migrant workers.

Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United), is Oregon’s union of farmworkers, nursery, and reforestation workers, and Oregon’s largest Latino organization. PCUN’s fundamental goal is to empower farmworkers to understand and take action against systematic exploitation and all of its effects. To achieve this end, PCUN is involved in community and workplace organizing on many different levels. Founded in 1985 by 80 farmworkers, PCUN has since grown to include more than 5,000 registered members, 98% of which are Mexican and Central American immigrants, and to encompass a wide variety of organizing projects.

Background information:

PCUN’s office is located in Woodburn, a town of just over 20,000 located in the mid-Willamette Valley, the center of Oregon’s agricultural industry. Woodburn, which evolved during the 1960’s into a service and cultural center for the Valley’s Mexican community, currently has a majority Latino population of just over 50%.