Week Nine

Farmworkers are essential to the economic well-being of U.S. society, but they continue to live and work under conditions which deprive them of what is decent and adequate to survive. They are among the poorest paid workers in this country and have struggled to be included under the minimum wage laws. The wages they receive result in farmworkers and their families living in conditions of poverty. At their workplace and in communities in which they live, they face discrimination and exploitation. Intentional exclusion from these protections denies farmworkers such rights as overtime pay or the protected right to organize. The few state and federal laws established to protect farmworker rights, such as the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, have not been adequately enforced. Instead these laws have continued to be weakened at every level. This places farmworkers and their families in jeopardy of abuse, serious injury, and even death. In addition, unemployment and workers compensation benefits have been systematically denied to farmworkers. Children of farmworkers are often forced by their parents poverty into the fields at ages as young as 10.