\t\t\t\t\tWhat\u2019s at stake?<\/p>\n
The farmworker wage fight is heating up particularly fast on the Central Coast, where farmers say they simply can\u2019t afford massive mandatory pay hikes.<\/p>\n
Four years after a landmark report from UC Merced<\/a> painted a dire picture of health outcomes among California\u2019s more than 900,000 farmworkers, a new study suggests not much has improved.<\/p>\n If anything, matters seem to have only worsened since 2022, as the 21 farmworkers interviewed for the new study<\/a> told researchers. As the prices of daily necessities have climbed while wages have stagnated, farmworkers said they\u2019ve been forced to make even tougher decisions between covering the costs of medical care and other essentials like paying for childcare or utility bills.<\/p>\n At a news conference in downtown Fresno on Wednesday, organizers with Centro Binacional para el Ind\u00edgena Oaxaque\u00f1o<\/a>, one of the collaborators on the report, highlighted these findings \u2014 and urged state lawmakers to mitigate strains on farmworker health by establishing an industry-wide, livable wage standard.<\/p>\n \u201cOur legislators have the power in the state of California to provide the opportunity to ensure our farmworkers have a livable wage,\u201d said Sarait Martinez, executive director of Centro Binacional, \u201cdignified wages and an opportunity to thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n The study projected possible health outcomes if farmworker wages were raised to $26 per hour. That\u2019s almost $10 higher than the median wage of $17 an hour that farmworkers make in California \u2014 which is closer to $16.63 in Fresno County, according to California Employment Development Department data compiled in the report.<\/p>\n Twenty-six dollars is also the hourly minimum farmworkers and advocates are pursuing\u00a0 in Santa Barbara County.<\/p>\n Farmers in the Central Coast county have pushed back on the initiative, the Santa Maria Times reported<\/a>, arguing the minimum wage could backfire, leading to farmworker layoffs<\/a> and putting farms out of business as growers keep up with rising costs of doing business in California.<\/p>\n Martinez told Fresnoland she supports the minimum wage efforts in Santa Barbara and hopes it will demonstrate that farmers can in fact afford to pay their workers more.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope it passes,\u201d she said. \u201cWe hope that it is successful because I think it will show that the industry is not going to break for paying livable wages.\u201d<\/p>\n Other potential wage cuts loom over farmworkers<\/p>\n The farmworkers interviewed in the new study \u2014 conducted by a collective of community-based organizations across the Central Valley, Central Coast and North Bay \u2014 reported strains on both their physical and mental health as they struggled to make ends meet.<\/p>\n Interviewees said these strains also have a ripple effect on their children. One farmworker shared, for instance, that her child was getting bullied at school for always wearing the same clothes \u2014 and that new clothes were a luxury they couldn\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n A lot of these findings were nothing new to Martinez, whose organization has served farmworkers in the Central Valley since 1993<\/a>.<\/p>\n But with the added pressure from heightened immigration enforcement in President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, she said it\u2019s a timely reminder of what\u2019s at stake when it comes to farmworker wages.<\/p>\n \u201cThe economic and political climate is so different right now,\u201d she said, \u201cnot just for farmworkers \u2014 for everyone. Farmworkers, with the current immigration threats \u2014 there\u2019s a lot of fear.\u201d<\/p>\n Diomedes Rosales, a farmworker that currently lives in Madera, also echoed the sentiments from the report at Wednesday\u2019s news conference.<\/p>\n Rosales, who\u2019s worked on California farms since 2003, said some farmworkers\u2019 wages haven\u2019t budged from the $50 to $60 dollars a day he and his colleagues averaged more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t understand how there are people that still pay this same wage,\u201d he told reporters in Spanish, \u201cand how they think people with this wage are going to sustain a household and a family.\u201d<\/p>\n