Unitarian Universalists Endorse Farmworker Bill of Rights

At a special congregational meeting on April 3, members of the Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship voted to endorse a Farmworker Bill of Rights for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. This Bill of Rights is sponsored by CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy), an activist group in Ventura County for low-wage workers.

The Farmworker Bill of Rights is a historic effort to improve working conditions for the people who help bring food to our tables. CVUUF supports this effort, underlying its affirmation of the dignity and worth of every human being. CVUUF believes that working conditions for farmworkers should be safe, hours should not be excessive and more resources should be devoted to enforcing laws against wage theft.

CAUSE interviewed more than 300 farmworkers in both counties and found three main areas of concern.

1 Work Hours and Conditions: Most farmworkers need to work 50 to hours a week to sustain their family in substandard housing and nourish their children. The Bill of Rights calls for adequate sick time, protecting pregnant women from pesticides with pregnancy leave that preserves job status while they are away, and requiring real break times. Farmworkers often told of breaks being nonexistent or shortened in the field and sanitary facilities being too far away to be reached in the time allotted.

2 Crack Down on Wage Theft: In the interviews, farmworkers reported frequent undercounting of the amount they harvested, thereby reducing their wages. They told of being required to continue working after they had punched out and were waiting for a paycheck. Wage theft is already against the law. The Bill of Rights asks for more resources for enforcement with meaningful penalties for violations, and for protection of workers against retaliation when reporting wage theft.

3 Protect Health and Safety: The Bill of Rights asks for more funding to educate workers about necessary health and safety precautions for agricultural work, where the presence of pesticides is common. It also calls for the provision of adequate safety equipment and holding growers responsible if they apply pesticides when workers are in the field. Pesticides are at times sprayed behind workers moving across a field to pressure them to work faster, the CAUSE report stated.

By endorsing the Farmworker Bill of Rights, CVUUF encourages county government officials to set standards and provide enforcement resources to protect workers who have been left behind as conditions improved for most others in the 20th Century. CVUUF regards conditions in the fields as a social injustice against immigrant workers, many of whom are afraid to assert their rights out of concern about their status.