California IN BRIEF : SANTA ROSA : Farm Workers Get Jobs in Hawaii
Fifty Northern California farm workers will be flown to Honolulu next month as the first of about 500 seasonal laborers to be offered six-month contracts working crops in Hawaii. George Ortiz, president of the Santa Rosa-based California Human Development Corp., said round-trip air fare, housing and benefits, as well as wages ranging from $6 to $14 an hour, will be paid by Hawaiian growers. The agreement, worked out with the help of federal and state funding, matches Hawaii’s needs for farm labor with the triple effects of drought, recession and a December freeze that has idled about 65,000 farm workers in California.
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