Letters to the Editor: I saw terrible conditions for farmworkers in the 1970s. Not much has changed

To the editor: In 1973, I set out from UC Berkeley, new teaching credential in hand, to my first job in Indio, in the Coachella Valley. My husband was to teach in nearby Thermal. We were shocked at the waste of water and electricity — sprinklers going midday and air conditioners turned up so cold that I would take a sweater to go shopping. (“113 degrees at work, failing AC at home: Farmworkers can’t escape life-threatening heat,” Aug. 16)

Many students were the children of farmworkers, and the conditions described in your article on the lack of reliable air conditioning in their homes were almost exactly the same then as now.

Oh, but wait — now Thermal has a private community, The Thermal Club, with a world-class race track for folks who need such a thing. Where does the water come from for their custom car wash station? Why is their water safe to drink out of the faucet? How often does their air conditioning go out? Do they enjoy cold melon and strawberries by their pools?

Who permitted all this high-end construction without building in considerations for the surrounding community of people who pick our food?

When I was in the Coachella Valley, representatives from the United Farm Workers were out there urging farmworkers to join, and they were successful in getting higher wages. But after all these years, they still earn only $15.50 an hour for backbreaking work in the heat. The inequity is still shocking.

Janice Segall, Pasadena

..

To the editor: Many things are unjust in our society, but our treatment of farmworkers is off the chart.

Those who put food on our table, the people whom we recognized during the pandemic as some of our truly essential workers, earn around $15 per hour. For this miserly wage, they are asked to toil and live in the most inhumane conditions imaginable.

That their employers resist providing the barest minimum of relief in the searing sun — clean water, some shade and work breaks — is beyond comprehension. That minimally acceptable housing isn’t available to them is grotesque.

Farm labor, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, accounts for only 7.4 cents of our food dollar. Farmworkers have been underpaid and mistreated for far too long. State and local officials, are you listening?

Grace Bertalot, Anaheim