Ramirez leads Florida farmworker movement westward

By Ben Dimapindan
Daily Forty-Niner

It’s 4 a.m. and Romeo Ramirez rolls out of bed, rising to begin his day before even the sun does.

He didn’t think life would be like this – not here, at least.

Outside, the 21-year-old stands saturated in the cold morning air and waits with his fellow Florida farmworkers for the opportunity – not a guarantee, however – to pick tomatoes.

He never thought work in "the land of the free" would be this hard.

Under the hot sun, with sweat racing down his brow, Ramirez, along with the rest, labor and scramble incessantly to pick tomatoes. If Ramirez fills enough 32-lbs. buckets, he will be counted among the fortunate ones who earned $50 in that eight- or nine-hour load.

And as this seemingly endless cycle repeats itself day after day, he questions whether this life is the so-called American dream that he traveled thousands of miles to realize.

Ramirez ventured to the United States in December 1996, in search of a better life than the one he had in his small hometown of Cuilco, in the state of Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

"Back home, there were a lot of problems," Ramirez said through translator Brian Payne of the Student-Farmworker Alliance. "A lot of adults in my family don’t have jobs, don’t have a way to make a living because of the political, social and economic situation in Guatemala, where corporations bought up the land that people formerly used to work and farm on."

Since planting his feet on American soil over six years ago, Ramirez, like many immigrants with little or no education, found an immediate source of income through farmwork.

He discovered rather quickly though that his high hopes for work and a better way of life in the United States were exactly that – merely abstract hopes.

"I’m surprised with the way work is here," Ramirez said. "Work is so much harder than I thought, life is sadder. I’m away from my family, away from my culture.

"My image of work here is different from the reality. I thought it was going to be less risky, and make more money and have more protection, but it’s not necessarily like that."

The reality for most newly arrived immigrants with little or no education who are in dire need of an immediate means of support is simply that their only feasible option is farmwork or produce picking – a business not generally heralded for competitive wages.

The National Agricultural Workers Survey in 1998 noted that nearly 75 percent of domestic farmworkers made less than $10,000 annually. In fact, half of all individual farmworkers earned below $7,500.

In addition, most farmworkers do not receive hourly wages, but are instead paid piece rates, or by the bucket. According to Payne, a U.S. Department of Labor study in 2000 found that piece rates had remained stagnant at 40 to 45 cents per 32-lbs. bucket for nearly 20 years.

Tired and fed up with the low wages and lack of respect professionally, "a handful of Guatemalan, Mexican and Haitian [Florida farmworkers] organized the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in 1995 to try to confront the problems of violence and the [payments] that were taken from them," said Ramirez, who is now a CIW organizer.

"[I got involved in] the organization because when I was working I saw a lot of abuses and wanted to change it," Ramirez said.

"On an every day level, if you pick a bucket of tomatoes, you get a coin or a chip [which you would turn in at the end of the day to receive your payment]. But often they wouldn’t issue you one after picking a bucket, claiming that you didn’t fill it up enough or they didn’t see you. You lost so much time and had to go back to pick another bucket. It’s simple abuses like not paying checks to workers at the end of the week; they [growers] pretend like I didn’t work."

Ramirez also said that the fervor of his personal struggles against inequity in the fields fueled his avid participation in the coalition.

"It kind of came from myself, living life as a poor person," Ramirez said. "Companies treated us like donkeys, worse than farm animals. It seems like they have no basic respect for us as humans, and with issues like low wages, I had to do something to change all this."

And Ramirez has done something to improve the situation on the fields.

In 1997, he joined in a weeklong general strike in Immokalee, Fla. Two years later, he took part in a weeklong hunger strike in Immokalee, which resulted in a 5 percent increase in the picking rate, the first increase in over 20 years.

The piece rate jumped from 40 to 50 cents per bucket to 45 to 55 cents per bucket. According to Ramirez, the Immokalee-based Six L’s Packaging Co. was the only grower in the area to disregard the pay raise. Ramirez worked for Six L’s in 1997 and claims that the company still owes him for three weeks of work.

The coalition, picking up strong momentum from regional hunger strikes and gaining support from student and activist organizations like the Student-Farmworker Alliance and the La Raza Student Association at Cal State Long Beach, steamrollered into Orange County on Feb. 24.

Taco Bell’s headquarters, located in Irvine, was the most recent site of CIW protest. Thousands nationwide converged on the Southern California company to show solidarity in the farmworkers’ cause and to endorse the boycott of Taco Bell.

The fast-food giant, which uses approximately 60 million tons of tomatoes in one year at its 6,700 U.S. locations, purchases tomatoes from Six L’s, a company which its farmworkers accuse of poor pay and treatment.

"After five years of organizing hunger strikes and 230-mile marches, no matter how much pressure we used, growers refused to negotiate with us," Ramirez said. "We took the next step and went after their supporters, and Taco Bell is a major buyer of the tomatoes we pick."

However, Taco Bell officials feel that the bull’s eye should not be placed on the Mexican-style restaurant chain.

"We believe that the efforts of the farmworkers are misdirected at Taco Bell when they should be directed at Six L’s," Taco Bell spokeswoman Carol Anawati said. "These farmworkers don’t work for Taco Bell. They work for Six L’s."

But Ramirez contests that Taco Bell does have the potential to effect great change in the farmworkers’ current situation.

If the coalition can make a significant impact on Taco Bell consumers, then the company would be muscled into bringing the growers and the farmworkers together to set better working conditions and living wages, according to Ramirez.

Anawati maintained that Taco Bell does not have the influential market power that the CIW thinks it does.

"Six L’s is just one of many companies across the country that Taco Bell purchases tomatoes from," Anawati said. "In fact, Taco Bell accounts for less than one percent of the 360 million lbs. that Six L’s produces.

"The farmworkers are hoping that by placing public pressure on Taco Bell, we can in turn pressure growers into [increasing wages], but that’s not the case. It’s not our place to settle the labor disputes of another company. It’s up to Six L’s."

In addition, Anawati added that Taco Bell doesn’t buy tomatoes from Six L’s. The company uses a unified purchasing cooperative.

"There is no contract between Taco Bell and its broker or Six L’s," Anawati said. "There is no direct connection between us."
Six L’s could not be reached by phone in time for comment.

The hunger strike, however, lasted for 10 days, concluding an March 5 with an Ash Wednesday service as national religious groups vowed to "carry the torch" for the struggling farmworkers, the Naples (Fla.) Daily News reported.

Ramirez, one of the event’s organizers, was not afforded the opportunity to speak directly with the growers, but his fire for this fight has not diminished.

He said he hopes that the thousands of farmworkers who gathered in Irvine will learn and remember to take the initiative themselves and stand up against what they feel is injustice, as he did and continues to do.

"Workers are taking lead (roles) and they are developing leadership skills," Ramirez said. "[I only hope all of this] will be able to bring about change for negotiating better wages, better rights, better protection and better working conditions."