Retirement for Farmworker, 92, Is Sweetened by $76,891 Check

At 92 years of age, Francisco Flores Martinez can officially retire.

Nearly three decades after becoming eligible for a United Farm Workers pension, the former vegetable picker finally received his first retirement check -- a $76,891 retroactive payment he earned as a member of the nation’s first and only benefits program for retired field hands.

In a ceremony Thursday at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, union leaders presented Martinez with the money as part of a campaign to track down former farmworkers and reunite them with their retirement pay.

The lump sum payment is for pension benefits he should have received since age 65. The Mexicali resident will also receive $1,682 a month for the rest of his life from the pension plan, an amount that far exceeds any wage he ever earned picking crops.

“I forgot that the money was there,” said the father of nine, smiling broadly and sporting a UFW button on the lapel of his blazer.

“I am very content; there is nothing I need,” he said. “This money is for my family, to help them get ahead.”

Workers such as Martinez are the focus of a decade-long UFW campaign to reach thousands of aging farmworkers who could be owed millions in pension funds under the retirement program established in 1975 by union founder Cesar Chavez.

The fund, valued at nearly $100 million, has 10,000 members. But UFW officials estimate more than 700 retired workers are eligible for benefits but don’t know it.

Martinez was the 99th retiree to receive a retroactive payment since the union began searching for pensioners. Of those, he is the oldest to draw benefits and received the largest lump sum payment.

Fund administrator Douglas Blaylock said that like most of the retirees, Martinez was surprised to learn he was eligible for pension benefits after relatives drove him to the UFW’s Oxnard office three months ago to inquire.

But Blaylock said unlike most of the others, Martinez had planned for his retirement during three decades of working the fields and was making ends meet on his savings and Social Security.

Still, Blaylock said he wished he could have given Martinez his money sooner.

“I love giving a 92-year-old a check for $76,000, but think of the comfort this could have brought him between the age of 65 and 92,” Blaylock said. “Mr. Martinez was one of the few who actually saved for his old age. For most of the others, we were really giving them bread and butter money.”

UFW leaders used Thursday’s ceremony to spread the word about the hunt for pensioners.

Speaking to an assemblage of camera crews, they said the Martinez family learned of the search for retirees over the summer while watching a news story on Spanish-language television about a Fresno farmworker who received a $42,000 retroactive check.

When Martinez visited family members in Oxnard a few months later, they took him to the local UFW office, where administrative assistant Juan Molina got on the phone to assess his eligibility.

Molina found that in more than 30 years in the fields, Martinez had worked 10 years for a Salinas Valley lettuce grower under contract with the UFW. Ten years was the minimum at that time to qualify for pension benefits.

“They had no idea when they walked in whether they qualified,” Molina said. “It felt great, after so many years, to be able to help this man get his money.”

The money came Thursday in the form of an oversized check handed out by UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, who told of Martinez’s role in securing a union contract at the Salinas Valley lettuce company in 1976.

Rodriguez said it was around the same time that Chavez had created the farmworker pension plan, a hallmark of benefits won for laborers in the 1970s.

“He was a fighter,” the UFW president said of Martinez, “a pioneer who did something not just for himself , but for everyone who would follow. He came to the United States with the idea that he could make a better life for himself and his family. We are extremely grateful that he never lost sight of that dream.”

Retired farmworkers who believe they may qualify for pension benefits should call (800) 321-6607 or (888) 735-5352 or inquire on line at www.ufw.org/jdlc.htm.