López, originally from Guatemala, is a tomato picker at Immokalee, southern Florida, and a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. He spoke to Militant reporters February 25, during an evening dinner and forum at the Church of God here for the dozens of farm workers who had been marching across southwest Florida for nearly a week to win support for their demands.

About 80 farm workers--overwhelmingly immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean--and a number of their supporters set out from Ft. Myers on a 230-mile trek February 19.

The majority of the workers are tomato pickers in the Immokalee area. The two-week march will culminate in Orlando March 4. There, the workers will try to meet with representatives of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, the main organization of the bosses.

In 1997, 2,000 of the 2,500 farm workers in Immokalee signed cards saying they wanted the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to represent them in talks with the growers on wages and working conditions. The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association has refused to recognize the CIW as a union or negotiate with the workers. According to The Ledger, published in Florida, "the owners association says it sees the group as an outside party trying to influence workers."

"This is simply a smokescreen," said Samuel Mar, another tomato picker from Immokalee, in an interview in Tampa responding to this charge. "The overwhelming majority of the workers in the Immokalee area belong to our coalition for almost three years now. The bosses are trying to justify their determination to keep the status quo and our superexploitation. But times are changing. We have just demands. During our march we have met thousands, including other farm workers who have joined us and offered their solidarity. And we are not alone. We are not the only ones fighting."

Farm workers receive 45 cents for each couveta, a 32-lb bucket of picked tomatoes. At that rate workers have to pick nearly two tons to make $50 in a day--a virtually impossible task. López, Mar, and other farm workers who have been picking fruits and vegetables for over two decades, say that very experienced pickers working in an excellent field can pick at most 100 buckets of tomatoes a day.

The average yearly wage of tomato pickers is $8,500. These workers say this pay scale has remained the same for more than 20 years. They are demanding that the minimum piece rate be raised to 75 cents a bucket, just to keep up with inflation since 1978.

The Immokalee workers are also demanding better housing and working conditions, as well as health coverage.

The bosses claim these farm workers make $9 per hour, which López and other workers say is a lie. "The hourly rate is the federal minimum wage of $5.15," said López. "But most workers don't want that because you can't make anything. Most of us prefer the piece rate. It's the only way to make anything approaching a living wage. Often, we go to the fields and have to wait for hours for the ground to dry before we can get in. If it rains, there is no work that day. And we don't get paid for any of that, whether on hourly pay or piece rate."

In Orlando, the CIW plans to hold a rally that will include representatives of the Florida Farm Workers Association and the United Farm Workers. During the march, religious and other groups are collecting signatures on a petition to be presented to Florida governor John Ellis Bush.

The petition is intended to put pressure on the growers' association to meet the CIW's demands, especially on wages. At the same time, it promotes the false view that a wage raise for tomato pickers may be tied to the price of tomatoes at the supermarket. "We as consumers would happily support a tomato industry that pays a living wage and meets certain labor rights, even if it means paying a few cents more per pound in the market," the petition says.

Ray Gilmer, spokesman for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, said that according to The Ledger the wage increase the farm workers demand would cut into the profits of the employers. "Florida farmers also are competing with their Mexican counterparts, who have flooded the American market with inexpensive tomatoes," The Ledger article read.

According to a number of the farm workers, the bosses association is still refusing to meet with them. But as Maria, a farm worker from Wimauma, Florida, who came to the Tampa meeting to show her solidarity with the Immokalee pickers, pointed out, "The amount of profit is the growers' problem. We need a living wage." Several farm workers said that they forced one company, Gargiulo, to give a substantial wage raise last year as a result of the CIW's protests and organizing efforts. "That victory can be generalized if we stick together," said Maria, who asked that only her first name be used.  
 

Young people support march

Many young people have turned out to show their support to the march at different spots, and some have joined it for periods of time. In Sarasota, about 100 students from the University of Florida turned out for a solidarity rally. "It has been a long, hard march, and we are all tired. But it has been good to meet so many wonderful people," said farm worker Lucas Benítez at the Sarasota meeting.

"We are all workers," John Grimes, a retired auto worker from Michigan now living in Sarasota, told The Ledger. "When one of us doesn't have a voice, none of us has a voice. When employees don't have a recourse, that's when things get bad. We have unions in this country for a reason."

At the Tampa meeting, the local Quakers group, the hosting church, and other organizations that sponsored the support rally and organized housing for the marchers' overnight stay, presented all march participants with new pairs of sneakers and a check of $2,000 for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Most of the farm workers found out for the first time from unionists in Miami at the Tampa event about the March 7 demonstration in Florida's capital, Tallahassee, to oppose the sweeping attacks by the administration of Governor Bush on affirmative action. A handful knew about it already and were planning to go. "This is a cause for all working people," said Mathieu, also from Immokalee, who asked to be identified only by his first name.

A number of farm workers and others also had a chance to speak informally with Karl Butts, a working farmer from Plant City, Florida, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Cuba. Butts had set up an information table at the Tampa event, along with an activist in the Cuba Vive coalition in Tampa. They distributed a press release about speaking engagements for Butts that Cuba Vive is organizing in the area, as well as T-shirts and other materials.

"We need a revolutionary change in this country like they had in Cuba," said José Antonio Martínez, an orange picker from Immokalee after reading some of the materials on the small farmers trip to Cuba. "A few of us hold that view now. But more are listening as we expand the struggle."  
 
 
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