Fresno State College Assistance Migrant Program or CAMP students
Juana Juarez and Elizabeth Gallegos studying at the CAMP office.
Alicia Acevedo / The Collegian
Fresno State students, fellow farm workers’ families and the United Farm Workers Union are working together to ask California governor Jerry Brown for equal pay.
Fresno State student Jessica Jacobo, along with other agriculture workers are trying to persuade California governor Jerry Brown to pass Senate Bill 180, better known as Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act.
The Bakersfield Californian newspaper reported that 25 California residents will walk 200 miles from Madera to Sacramento. Residents of several cities along the way will periodically join the protestors.
“We ask the governor Jerry Brown to sign the law,” wrote United Farm Workers union organizer Antonio Cortez in an e-mail. The bill would “pay agriculture worker overtime after eight hours of work.”
The governor vetoed a similar bill that would have made it easier for farm workers to join unions on June 28.
Supporters of the bill began their walk from Madera on August 23, and plan to arrive in Sacramento on Sept. 4.
Supporters hope that their efforts will persuade the state government to pass laws that would protect farm workers rights.
Many Fresno State migrant students, like Jacobo, feel a sense of pride and passion knowing that participating in such events will help spread the word.
“I walked four miles and it was really emotional,” Jacobo said. “The march was a unique experience and it made me feel proud of my family and it gives me energy to keep furthering my education.
“I do support the cause and I hope that the bill passes, because Governor Jerry Brown didn’t [sign it the first time] when it was brought to the state board,” Jacobo added.
Several (CAMP) College Assistance Migrant Program students continue to find work each summer by working on local farms around Fresno.
“I think it’s really unfair because the conditions under which we worked were really tough and very hard and I saw people falling off ladders,” Fresno State student Stephanie Ramirez said. “The boss doesn’t do anything about it but the farm workers deserve more attention than what they are given.”
The farms that employ immigrant workers see these people as a source of cheap labor and constantly deny them many of the same rights that other California employees have, such as overtime wages.
“[Labor contractors] don’t care about the [workers] at all,” Ramirez said. “They only care about the food and that the work gets done.”
“When they would stop us at twelve they didn’t stop us because it was too hot to work. They stopped us because the food was to soft and it would come off the stem too easily.”
Wage increases to farm laborers might lead to higher prices for packing processors.
“Everybody is afraid of losing their markets,” chair of the agricultural business department Annette Levi said.
Prices will not be passed to the consumer because of fear that this will lead to an increase in exported products.
If a farm worker is injured or is ill, the worker does not receive paid sick days or given medical benefits.
This can have drastic effects physically and emotionally on an individual and their family.
Junior student Esmeralda Apresa, who is planning to major in psychology at Fresno State, said, “I saw the whole situation from the outside because my mom and uncle are the only ones in my family who work in the fields.”
With such treatment going on out of sight out of mind, many immigrants and lower class families feel angry and distressed.
Fresno State students and community members living in the San Joaquin Valley have come together to protest for the rights of the farm workers.