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Florida's first state minimum wage went into effect in May 2004, raising the state's wage from the federal $5.15 to $6.15 an hour. In January 2006, the state's minimum wage rose to $6.40 an hour.

Hurricane Wilma crossed Florida October 24, 2005, killing 35 people and damaging housing as well as orange and tomato crops. In Collier County, workers lost both jobs and housing. Immokalee, where Farm Worker Village, a 610-unit housing project, was flooded. The sugar cane and nursery crops were also damaged, and many farm workers were likely to lose a month's pay or more. Federal help was slow to arrive, with many unauthorized workers afraid to request aid for fear of being reported to immigration authorities.

A six-member Legislative Commission on Migrant and Seasonal Labor created in 1995 to examine farm worker issues pledged to begin its work in 2006 by examining how the children of migrant workers could qualify for state health insurance, review pesticide notification laws, and decide whether seat belts should be required in vans used to transport workers to the field. In November 2005, the Florida commission held hearings on farm workers affected by Hurricane Wilma, many of whom had their housing damaged.

Worker advocates want the Legislative Commission to move pesticide regulation from the agriculture department, saying that it tends to favor farmers. During the past decade, state agriculture inspectors found 4,600 violations of pesticide laws but assessed fines in only 7.6 percent of those cases.

There are an estimated 190,000 Hispanics in Palm Beach county, up from 140,000 in 2000. The "sugar cities" cities of Pahokee, Belle Glade, and South Bay have some of the highest unemployment and poverty rates in Florida. The Palm Beach Post in a December 11, 2005 editorial called on Alfonso Fanjul Jr and Pepe Fanjul, who control Florida Crystals, to take the lead in improving life in the sugar cities, since the Fanjuls' 150,000 acres of cane is over a third of the 400,000 acre total.

Actress Jodie Foster plans a film, Sugar Kings, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472425/), due out in 2007, which tells the story of a young lawyer who takes on the sugar mills on behalf of H-2A cane cutters.

Ag-Mart-Cuello. Ag-Mart Produce, a tomato (Santa Sweet) grower at the center of investigations into pesticide violations and birth defects in Florida and North Carolina, was fined a record $111,200 by Florida agriculture officials in October 2005. The complaint cited 88 counts of pesticide violations on two company farms, including one in Immokalee, such as having workers harvest one or two days after pesticide applications when the label called for a seven-day waiting period.

North Carolina officials cited Ag-Mart for 369 pesticide violations that carry fines of up to $185,000. Wal-Mart and Publix Super Markets, the sixth-largest US grocery store chain, removed Ag-Mart Santa Sweet-brand tomatoes, citing worker safety and fears of pesticide residues, but Publix resumed selling them in December 2005. However, McDonald's continued to use Santa Sweets on its salads.

Ag-Mart said that it maintains a toll-free number to receive complaints from workers that are resolved quickly, and received none about pesticide dangers. A class action federal lawsuit filed by 19 workers charges that Ag-Mart 's crew bosses housed workers in substandard conditions during the 2001 and 2002 harvest, and in 2003, DOL fined Ag-Mart $4,250 for nine violations at its North Florida operation.

Immokalee labor contractor Abel Cuello Jr was convicted of involuntary servitude in October 1999 for enslaving migrants, but in 2004 applied for new federal and state FLC licenses and received them in 2005. DOL says that FLCs are barred from being FLCs for five years after criminal convictions, and 510 US individuals are currently barred from acting as FLCs. Ag-Mart uses Cuello's wife, Yolanda, who is also an FLC operating as E&B Harvesting & Trucking, to obtain tomato pickers, but workers say that Abel is the supervisor they see.

In April 1999, federal agents freed 27 migrants from two trailers owned by Abel Cuello in Immokalee; Cuello kept the migrants under guard until they repaid smuggling fees by working for him. In September 1999, he was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison.

CIW. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in November 2005 followed up its 2004 success in getting the Taco Bell unit of Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc to pay one cent a pound more for tomatoes by calling on McDonald's to follow suit.

McDonald's countered that it agreed to buy tomatoes in 2005-06 from producers who agree to a code of conduct, the Socially Accountable Farm Employer (SAFE) program, negotiated by the Redlands Christian Migrant Association and the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association. Intertek http://www.intertek.com) will audit participating farms and award them SAFE certificates http://www.safe.org).

Tomatoes are normally harvested three times by workers who walk through fields picking green tomatoes into buckets; the tomatoes are then gassed to make them turn red.

Citrus. Florida produces most of the oranges that are processed into juice, and has made significant investments in mechanical harvesting, but few growers use the machines despite cost savings of up to 25 percent. One reason is that Brazil can produce juice oranges much cheaper, and many Florida growers who are now protected by a tariff on Brazilian juice apparently fear that investing in machines and preparing trees to be harvested by machine could turn out to be a losing investment in the event of freer trade.

North Carolina. A profile of H-2A workers reported that the North Carolina Growers Association, a super FLC, was bringing 6,500 Mexicans to the state's tobacco growers in 2005. These H-2A workers are in the state four to six months, and are guaranteed $8.24 an hour for at least 30 hours a week in 2005 to pull tobacco leaves from the stalk, usually in four passes through the field, harvesting the leaves from bottom to top. Interviews with workers found that some saved 80 percent of their US earnings of at least $247 a week (some reported working 11-hour days and remitting up to $500 a week at a cost of $10).

Housing is provided at no charge to H-2A workers, and their transportation costs (a three-day bus ride from Monterrey, Mexico that costs $400) are reimbursed by the NCGA if the workers finish their work contracts. Some growers reportedly reduce hours near the end of the season to encourage workers to quit, so that the employer does not have to pay return transportation.

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee has an agreement that allows H-2A workers employed by NCGA to join, and 4,100 have done so. They contribute 2.5 percent of their earnings to FLOC, and are told that, by becoming members, they have a better chance of returning next year.

NCGA head Stan Eury says that the "first full year of NCGA's relationship with FLOC has been a rocky one" because of 200 grievances filed. In 2004, Mount Olive pickle and NCGA reached a three-way agreement with FLOC under which H-2A workers may join FLOC, and FLOC says that an additional 500 unauthorized workers have joined. However, one result of the FLOC agreement and continued illegal migration is that 200 farmers who used to use NCGA to get H-2A workers quit doing so, reducing the number of H-2A workers from a peak 10,000.

Interviews with H-2A workers suggest that their primary motivation for paying dues to FLOC is to get green cards. One said: "I want a green card so that I can do something else."

Christine Stapleton, "Pesticide cloud hangs over Ag-Mart's Florida-grown Santa Sweets tomatoes," Palm Beach Post, December 20, 2005. Jeff Cull, "Labor contractor back," News-Press, December 9, 2005. Marta Hummel, "Union grows in the fields," Greensboro News & Record, November 6, 2005. Christine Evans, Christine Stapleton, John Lantigua, "State fines Ag-Mart $111,200 for pesticide violations," Palm Beach Post, October 13, 2005.