Viewpoint Children exposed, exploited on U.S. farms
By NEVE GORDON
One of the features characterizing
globalization is the erosion of differences. In Italy, McDonalds is
almost as popular as pizza, and in China, Coke is slowly replacing tea. Not
unlike the culinary dimension, the world is becoming similar in a variety of
other ways, including the employment and exploitation of workers.
Damaris (a pseudonym) started working in the broccoli and lettuce
fields when she was 13 years old and continued until she was nearly 18. During
peak season, she usually worked 14 hours a day, with two 15-minute breaks and a
half-hour for lunch. She often worked 85 or 90 hours a week. She suffered daily
nosebleeds for months, and several times her blood pressure plummeted and she
nearly passed out. She was exposed to pesticide drift and became ill, yet she
kept working.
Reading this testimony one tends to think of practices still
common in developing countries, or of the conditions to which U.S. laborers
were subjected in the late 19th century. Yet, Damaris, now 19, is living in
Arizona, and her story is not much different from the stories of hundreds of
thousands of other juveniles who labor each year in fields, orchards and
packing sheds across the United States.
In Fingers to the Bone: United States Failure to Protect
Child Farmworkers, a recent Human Rights Watch report, Lee Tucker claims
that agriculture is the most hazardous kind of work in which children are
employed. Juvenile farm workers are routinely exposed to dangerous
pesticides, suffering rashes, headaches, nausea and vomiting, Tucker
says, and adds that long-term consequences of pesticide poisoning include
cancer, brain damage and learning and memory problems.
One reads in the report that in addition to being endangered, the
youth face persistent wage exploitation and fraud, earning as
little as $2 an hour, significantly less than the federal minimum wage of
$5.15. Prospects for a better future are further jeopardized because only 55
percent graduate from high school.
Ironically, the violation of the basic rights of these children is
supported by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which states that children working
on farms may be employed from the age of 12 and provides no limitation to the
number of hours a child can work. In all other occupations, by contrast,
children under the age of 16 are limited to three hours of work per day when
school is in session.
Congress exacerbated the existing abuse when it exempted all
farms with fewer than 11 employees from enforcement of Occupational Safety and
Health Administration regulations. In this way, it deprived many children
of their only hope for protection and contributed to the general lack of
enforcement characterizing the employment of youth on farms.
Human Rights Watch points out that while, legally speaking, all
children working on farms suffer equal discrimination, de-facto an
estimated 85 percent of migrant seasonal farm workers nationwide are
racial minorities. In some regions, approximately 99 percent of farm
workers are Latino.
Racial discrimination is, once again, tied to poverty. Human
Rights Watch points out that the precarious situation of children is often
prompted by the exploitation of their parents. Considering that the 1999
average yearly earnings of an adult working on a farm was a mere $7,500, it is
hardly surprising that children are sent to work. How else can a family make
ends meet?
The maltreatment of children on American farms is part of
globalization, in the sense that First World countries no longer rely solely on
the Third World for cheap labor. Rather, large segments of society within the
United States are subjected to working conditions not unlike those in the
developing countries. Whereas many of those abused are migrant workers, it is
becoming common to exploit citizens as well. As the advocates of the global
market continue to extol the benefits of economic growth, the gap between the
rich and the poor widens, and our own backyard continues to be an arena of
abuse and subjugation.
Neve Gordon teaches in the Department of Politics and
Government at Ben-Gurion University, Israel, and can be reached at
ngordon@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
National Catholic Reporter, February 16,
2001
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