October 1999, Volume 5, Number 4
Rural America
California: Welfare and Farm Jobs
California's Central Valley, 430 miles long and up to
75 miles wide, covers nearly fifteen million acres, about the size of England.
The Central
Meat and Poultry
The INS in 1998-99 devised new ways of discouraging US employers from hiring
unauthorized workers without disrupting production or bothering US
Hispanics, Poverty, Southeast
The Census Bureau reported that there were 25.2 million
foreign-born residents of the US on July 1, 1998making them 9.3 percent
of US
Farm Workers
UFW: Coastal, Napa
On August 17, 1999, the ALRB Regional Director counted
the ballots in the June 3-4, 1999 election at Coastal Berry and put the final
tally at 725
Washington: Housing
The number of seasonal farm workers employed in Washington
varies from about 14,000 in January to nearly 70,000 from June into October.
The
States: Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee in August 1999 accused a farmer near
Toledo, Ohio of not paying some of the 110 workers hired to pick
California: Safety Housing
On August 9, 1999, 13 tomato sorters were killed in Fresno
County when the van in which they were riding collided with a tractor-trailer
truck
Farm Labor Data
California's minimum wage is $5.75 an hour; the federal
minimum is $5.15. Workers earning less than twice the minimum wage, $11.50
an hour, must
Immigration
Agricultural Guest Workers
In the early 1980s, the percentage of unauthorized workers
among US farm workers was 20 to 25 percent and rising, farm wages and benefits
were flat
H-2As, Mechanization, h-2Bs
The US State Department issued 27,061 H-2A visas to foreign
farm workers in 1998, up sharply from 20,689 in 1997. About 80 percent of
H-2A farm
INS: Border
A farm labor contractor in Florida, Abel Cuello Jr.,
was sentenced to 33 months in prison by a federal court in Tampa in October
1999 and ordered
Other
Canada: Guest Workers
There are about 11,000 foreign farm workers in Ontario
Canada in 1999most are from Mexico and the Caribbean, and they are
admitted for up to
Census of Agriculture
The 1997 Census of Agriculture (
[url=http://www.usda.gov]http://www.usda.gov[/url] ) reported that there
were 1.9 million farms in 1997, the same number as in 1992a farm
US Food System
Farming the smallest part of the three-part food and
fiber system, which consists of:
1.) input industries such as banks, chemical
Resources
ABA Looks at Farm Workers
On Friday, August 6, 1999 the American Bar Association,
meeting in Atlanta's World Congress Center, presented a Presidential Showcase
entitled:
State of the Great Central Valley
In July 1999, the Great Valley Center released a report,
The State of the Great Central Valley of California, that recommends that
the 19-county,