Field Machine Dispute Crops Up

A small band of farm workers is picking a fight with Ventura County’s high-profile strawberry industry, contending that the introduction of mechanized harvesting practices in the berry fields is hurting their backs and their pocketbooks.

The workers are angry about widespread use this season of tractor-like machines that advance through the fields ahead of the harvesters, providing a mobile platform on which workers deliver boxes of berries as soon as they are picked.

Growers say the machines are meant to reduce the potential for workplace injuries and maximize efficiency, production and pay by making it easier for pickers to do their jobs.

But some laborers fear the new system is leading to fewer jobs and lower pay, and that it eventually could contribute to chronic back problems because workers now spend so much time stooped over rows of berries and have fewer opportunities to stand and stretch. Under the old system, workers said, they had at least a minute to rest after filling a box.

“Every day after work I’m so tired,” said Amancio Garcia, who is in his 11th year as a harvester for an Oxnard berry farm. “This year alone has been harder on my body than all of the other years combined.”

Farm industry officials say the machines are used across the state and could revolutionize California’s $800-million strawberry industry .

Sporting long conveyor belts that span 15 rows of berries, the machines rumble through the fields ahead of pickers at half a mile per hour, according to Rob Roy, general counsel for the Ventura County Agricultural Assn., a growers trade group. Workers trail behind, filling boxes and delivering them to the conveyor belt a few steps away. In a traditional harvesting operation, workers fill boxes then carry them to a collection point, often at the end of a row.

Roy said the new system has eliminated the need for workers to lug heavy boxes long distances through muddy rows, a frequent cause of injury. He said workers are told to stand and stretch as often as they need to ease wear and tear on their backs.

Roy said the machines do not harvest berries or pace the workers. He said they are simply meant to aid pickers and have become popular with the majority of the work force because they help boost productivity and pay.

“I really feel very strongly that this is something not only of benefit to the industry but to the workers,” said Roy, who estimates more than 50 of the mobile platforms are combing the fields in Ventura County. “No one is having to constantly stoop over. What this does is take the work environment right to the worker.”

The dispute is the latest in a long series of clashes between growers and farm laborers over the toll exacted by stoop labor.

Nearly 30 years ago, farm worker advocates persuaded state officials to outlaw use of the short-handled hoe, arguing that the stooped position required to use the tool had crippled generations of field workers.

More recently, worker advocates and labor unions launched a campaign to ban weeding by hand in commercial agriculture, driven by what they say are an increasing number of back injury reports related to the practice. That move is being fought by growers who say hand weeding is vital to their operations.

There is no data to suggest the new strawberry harvesting practice causes back injuries or other problems.

But Ira Janowitz, a senior consultant with the ergonomics program at UC San Francisco, said he believes such an analysis should be done.

“We have a job that’s already hard on the back and the introduction of a machine that might make it even harder,” said Janowitz, who has viewed photographs of the picking operation but has not seen it in action.

“We should analyze this ahead of time so that we don’t blindly proceed with a fundamental change in the way strawberries are harvested that could create widespread problems,” he said.

Oxnard physician Terry Dillon, however, said he was asked by a local grower to review the operation last year, and Dillon said he believes it is better for harvesters.

“The ergonomics of picking are improved, if anything,” said Dillon, a doctor with US HealthWorks, a provider of occupational health care. “Workers can change positions frequently ... and stand and do stretches briefly. Generally speaking, they don’t have to walk as far on somewhat uneven ground as they did before. For those reasons, it’s an improvement.”

Within the work force, that is a matter of debate.

Some harvesters say they have trouble keeping pace with the machines and that crew bosses threaten dismissal if pickers fall behind. They say because the machines are always in motion, it’s harder now to take bathroom or water breaks.

Some workers contend they are now earning hundreds of dollars less each week because growers -- now able to speed the pace of production -- have switched from a system in which workers are paid by the box to one in which the pay is largely based on an hourly rate.

“We are now doing the work of two people,” said berry picker Julia Garcia, 20, who like others fears the strain of stooping for hours at a time could lead to injury and even long-term disability. “We are having to work harder for less money.”

Berry picker Maria Quintero rebuts those claims. Working behind the harvesting machines, Quintero said she has been able to earn more this year than in previous years.

Roy, of the county Agricultural Assn., said workers for growers he represents earn an average of $13 an hour behind the machines, based on pay of $6 an hour plus 75 cents per box. Those same growers also maintain traditional harvesting operations where workers are paid $1.50 per box, earning an average of $9 an hour, Roy said.

Quintero, 47, said it’s now easier to do her job since she no longer has to trudge to the end of a row with each box of berries. Quintero said she stretches and takes breaks when she needs to. And she said she has had no trouble keeping pace with the machine.

“There are times I think it’s going too slow,” said Quintero, who has been harvesting strawberries for 20 years. “I think the majority of workers like the machines. It makes it easier to do our work.”

It is perhaps fitting that the debate takes root in Ventura County, where growers have had to keep pace with a rapidly expanding strawberry industry.

County growers have nearly doubled the amount of land dedicated to strawberries over the last decade, farming a record 8,794 acres this season. That 10-year trend has made Ventura County the state’s fastest-growing strawberry producer and has established the county as the nation’s second-largest grower behind Watsonville-Salinas.

Growers in Oxnard were the first in the state to try the harvesting machines, introducing about 10 machines last year. Now the machines appear to be the wave of the future, with some in operation as far north as Salinas.

“From what we’re hearing from the industry, it sounds like this has been a positive experience overall for the employees and employers,” said Celine Garcia, a spokeswoman for the Western Growers Assn. “If it improves safety and improves productivity, we’re all for that.”

Still, others urge caution as the industry moves toward mechanization. Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn and Cal State Channel Islands professor Frank Barajas are calling for a closer look at the harvesting practice. After being contacted by workers, both men accompanied growers to the fields recently to view the operations.

Barajas, a history professor at the university near Camarillo, said he wants to hold a panel discussion next fall on mechanization in the industry. And Flynn said he would like to see pickers and growers meet to talk about ways to make the machines more “worker friendly.”

“They are not roped to the machine but in a sense they are part of the machine,” Flynn said of the pickers. “I think it’s an issue that needs some attention.”

The controversy has drawn the attention of the United Farm Workers union and even sparked an organizing drive at two Oxnard berry companies using the machines. Dozens of workers waving UFW flags and banners marched on an Oxnard shipper last month to protest the harvesting practice.

The workers are asking for a slower work pace, more frequent breaks and a boost in pay to compensate for the added strain on their bodies.

“Their fight is actually one for the whole strawberry community,” said Brendan Greene, a UFW organizer in Oxnard.

Roy said workers are generally pleased with the new system. He chalks up the complaints to a handful of disgruntled workers being egged on by the UFW, which he believes is using the issue as an organizing ploy.

“We have a machine that promotes worker safety and promotes better worker production,” said Roy, standing in a field last week where both the traditional operation and the new operation were in action.

“That is history,” he said, reviewing the traditional operation before turning his focus to the new one. “And this is the future.”