Labor Lawyer Finds He Has a Tough Row to Hoe : Agriculture: When farm workers are found using knives instead of long-handled tools, a complaint leads to change--this time.

Farm labor contractor Mateo Diaz was breaking in a new field crew on a cabbage plot between Ventura and Oxnard Friday, but he said he didn’t have hoes to distribute to his 32 workers.

The field was full of weeds, and the cabbage needed to be cleaned. So the workers were given knives to do the work, a practice banned two decades ago because it produces crippling back injuries.

The workers didn’t complain.

“We do what the foreman tells us,” field worker Manuel Aceves said. “Long hoes are better because we don’t have to bend over so much, but the foremen are the ones who pay us, so they tell us how to work.”

Everything was going smoothly for Diaz, head foreman of the West Valley Packing Co., until California Rural Legal Assistance lawyer Marco Abarca spotted the crew on his way to work.

The farm labor lawyer didn’t like what he saw. He pulled over, grabbed his Nikon camera, and began documenting the apparent violation.

“I told the (field) foreman that what he was doing was illegal, that people shouldn’t be working without long hoes,” Abarca later recalled.

The field foreman hastily summoned Diaz on his walkie-talkie, and minutes later Diaz showed up in a company pickup truck full of long hoes. Before long, every worker had a long hoe.

“I know that using knives for weeding is against the law, but what can I do?” Diaz asked in Spanish, about 30 minutes after Abarca’s visit.

“This is a new crew and we didn’t have enough long hoes for them. These people have to work, so there was no other way,” he said with a shrug.

Diaz worried about the lawyer.

“What do you think he’ll do to us? You think they’ll fine us or just give us a warning? This is the first time we use knives.”

The cabbage patch workers, who earn minimum wage, said they were pleased with their bosses’ decision to switch them to long hoes.

“Sometimes long hoes can hurt the cabbage plant, but it’s better to hurt a plant than to hurt your back,” Arturo Ayala said.

“They order us to work with knives, so we do it,” said Antonio Perales. “But hoes are so much better.”

“With long hoes you don’t get so tired and you don’t hurt your waist,” said David Silva.

Concepcion Genaro said she could understand why her bosses preferred the weeding knives.

“If you owned this crop, who would you rather hurt, the cabbage or the workers?” she asked with a knowing smile.

Abarca said he hopes the company receives a heavy fine. On Monday, he plans to turn over his evidence to the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It won’t be the first time Abarca will take on farm contractors who appear to be breaking the law.

In the last 2 1/2 years, he has documented eight to 12 cases of long-hoe violations and dozens of other work safety violations on the fields, he said. All of the long-hoe cases he reported ended in fines, Abarca said, but the stiffest fine was $800 for a repeat violator.

Abarca said he hopes that in the future, Cal/OSHA will get a little tougher.

Cal/OSHA officials said Friday that Abarca will soon get his wish. Under a new penalty schedule that will go into effect in May, the maximum fine for long-hoe violations will go up from $2,000 to $7,000 and fines for minor violations will go up accordingly, said a Cal/OSHA spokesman.

“Our job is to make sure employers comply with our standards,” Richard Stephens said in a phone interview from Cal/OSHA’s headquarters in San Francisco.

To this end, Abarca and his colleagues at California Rural Legal Assistance “have been very helpful,” said Don Jackson, a Ventura-based Cal/OSHA official.

“In the past, their cases have been very solid,” he said.

The West Valley Packing Co. has also heard from the legal aid group before. Last December, a social worker from the group noticed that West Valley Packing Co. farm workers had to walk 500 feet to reach a portable bathroom, Abarca said. The group sent the company a complaint letter, Abarca said. So far, he said, they have not received a response.

But it is the use of hand tools in the field that really makes Abarca mad.

“It’s been against the law for a long time, but contractors still do it because it is an instrument of control,” he said. “With the hand tools, you can see who’s working and who is standing up taking a rest.”

Known in the fields as “the devil’s hand,” the long-term effects of weeding with hand tools are devastating, Abarca said.

“You drive around Oxnard and you see all these people in their 50s who can’t work because their backs are busted,” he said.