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J Carnes felt queasy looking out at the rows and rows of rotting cabbage heads marked by cracked black leaves. The pungent odor -- like boiling cabbage, but worse -- made him retch. Even as the sun faded into the horizon, small clusters of migrant workers remained stooped in the fields. They moved fast, cutting the last good crops out of the dirt and dropping them into burlap sacks strapped across their chests. But there weren't anywhere close to enough workers. And, anyway, it was already too late. "The fields had a dark, ugly, death-look to them," Carnes recalls, "like...

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — A federal judge has granted class-action status to a lawsuit filed by Yakima Valley farm workers who contend a Los Angeles-based labor contractor illegally and intentionally displaced them with workers from Thailand. U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Leavitt ruled that the three plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit may proceed on behalf of an estimated 600 farm workers allegedly denied work when Global Horizons Manpower imported workers from Thailand under the federal H-2A guest-worker program in 2004. Global Horizons brought more than 100 temporary agricultural workers from Thailand to the Yakima Valley in 2004 and 2005 under the...

They say Senate bill needs assurances on living conditions, pay Picking beets, cherries and cotton and shoveling manure on farms across the United States as a Mexican guest worker in the 1940s and 1950s, Cecilio Santillana was glad to earn a few dollars a day. He didn't complain about living in horse stalls without bathrooms or doing stoop work for 12 hours a day without breaks for fear he would be sent back to Chihuahua and lose the steady work that allowed him to support his family in Mexico. But the 78-year-old San Jose man opposes a temporary worker proposal...

OCEANSIDE, Calif. - Tomato grower Luawanna Hallstrom understands how paths cross in the shadowy world of illegal immigrant and employer. Her three-generation family farm needed workers to harvest a crop in 2001, so it hired 300 farmhands. All their documents appeared in order, she said. Then federal authorities found that three-fourths of the workers were illegal immigrants, and that left the peak harvest in ruins. "People say, `You should get those employers that hire the undocumented!' Well, wait a minute. They have documents, but they're fraudulent. We are supposed to take them at face value - otherwise you get into...

BEELITZ, GERMANY - Instead of waiting for the next welfare check, Heino Wittstock is picking asparagus. The German construction worker has been unemployed for three years. But this spring, he joins some 280,000 Polish migrant farmhands, plucking the foot-high green and white sentinels from the rich Brandenburg loam. "I need to do something; Sitting at home on the couch is not an option," he says. In an unusual effort to address its 11.9 percent unemployment rate, Berlin is also trying to answer a common refrain in many industrial nations: "Foreigners are taking jobs away from us." In Germany, the spring...

YAKIMA — Some farmers in Eastern Washington are looking to hire as many as 1,000 seasonal farmworkers from Mexico under a federal guest-worker program, as concerns about a labor shortage this season heighten. Last year, a severe drought in the Yakima Valley, as well as reduced crop size, enabled growers to avert a serious labor shortage, by most accounts. Still, two employers were able to justify hiring 90 workers from Thailand to harvest apples under the federal H-2A program, which allows farmers to bring in foreign workers if they can prove a labor shortage exists. This year's unprecedented recruiting comes...

Attorneys representing Carlitos Candelario, the Immokalee boy born 14 months ago without arms and legs, announced Wednesday they had filed suit against his parents' agricultural employer claiming the firm's negligence with pesticides caused the catastrophic birth defects. The suit claims that the employer, Ag-Mart Produce Inc., based in Plant City, failed "to provide reasonably safe conditions for the fetuses of its pregnant female workers and to warn of hazardous conditions" caused by pesticide use. The suit filed for the child's parents, Francisca Herrera, 19, and Abraham Candelario, 21, holds the company liable for medical and hospital costs, liftetime care costs,...

Farmworkers sue FEMA over lack of aid following hurricanes By Denise Kalette The Associated Press February 16, 2006 MIAMI · A coalition of Florida farmworkers has sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency, alleging the government refused to help undocumented farmworkers displaced by hurricanes with housing because of their immigration status. Many farmworkers who were denied federal help after their homes were destroyed were forced to live in cars and other dangerous situations, while trailers intended for emergency housing went unused, according to a lawsuit filed last week...

MIAMI - A coalition of Florida farmworkers has sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency, challenging the government's refusal to help undocumented farmworkers affected by hurricanes with housing and other assistance, because of their immigration status. In the lawsuit, the Coalition of Florida Farmworker Organizations and the Farmworker Association of Florida said that federal law exempts short-term non-cash emergency disaster relief from restrictions based on immigration status. Emergency aid from the government would have mitigated the disastrous effect of the storms, including Hurricane Wilma, on farmworker communities, according to the lawsuit, which asked the court to review FEMA's actions in withholding...

WASHINGTON - The United Farm Workers union has left the AFL-CIO and will join a group of breakaway unions known as the Change to Win Coalition, in a move the UFW hopes will boost recruiting efforts, officials said Thursday. The UFW, with about 27,000 members, joins the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE HERE and the Carpenters in forming the dissident Change To Win Coalition. The Laborers International Union of North America also is part of the new federation, but has not left the AFL-CIO. "We view this as a positive step in...

Red letters flash inside the famous black eagle, symbol of the United Farm Workers: "Donate," the blinking message urges, to carry on the dreams of Cesar Chavez. Bannered on websites and spread by e-mail, the insistent appeals resonate with a generation that grew up boycotting grapes, swept up in Chavez's populist crusade to bring dignity and higher wages to farmworkers. Thirty-five years after Chavez riveted the nation, the strikes and fasts are just history, the organizers who packed jails and prayed over produce in supermarket aisles are gone, their righteous pleas reduced to plaintive laments. What remains is the name,...

# The movement built by Cesar Chavez has failed to expand on its early successes organizing poor rural laborers. As their plight is used to attract donations that benefit others, services for those in the fields are left to languish. Red letters flash inside the famous black eagle, symbol of the United Farm Workers: "Donate," the blinking message urges, to carry on the dreams of Cesar Chavez. Bannered on websites and spread by e-mail, the insistent appeals resonate with a generation that grew up boycotting grapes, swept up in Chavez's populist crusade to bring dignity and higher wages to farmworkers....

PARLIER, Calif. (AP) - Acres of leafless vineyards surround this town of 12,000 in California's San Joaquin Valley, the bare branches a stark reminder that in the middle of winter, there is little work in the fields. Traditionally, many of the migrants who crossed the border illegally to plant and harvest returned home to Mexico by the time the winter fog unfurled over California's farm belt, emptying towns such as Parlier to spend Christmas and New Year's with family. That annual migration has slowed dramatically in the past few years, as tougher border enforcement has prompted fears of capture and...

Farm workers know when an orange is ripe for picking or how to prune a peach tree, but many have poor driving skills, which puts everyone's lives at risk, road safety experts said Wednesday. "A lot of them just don't know how to drive," said Abel Serrano, one of about 20 farm labor contractors and farm representatives who came to Visalia to hear about the Farm Worker Motor Vehicle Safety program developed by the California State University, Fresno. Many farm workers are recent immigrants who can't read road signs in English and didn't start driving until arriving in California's farm...

Pushing back the silvery-green canopy of an olive tree, Don Stutsman examines clusters of ripening fruit and wonders whether he'll have enough hands to pick the blushing berries. He usually finishes his harvest by the end of October. But this year a number of unusual factors have collided to leave fruit hanging longer, jeopardizing his crop and highlighting the industry's dependence on illegal immigrants. A booming construction industry is offering better pay, and beefed-up patrolling along the Mexican border has made it harder for unauthorized workers to reach farms, offering a preview of what would happen if this source of...

Imperial Valley lettuce farmer Jack Vessey says it's the worst in his lifetime. Farther north in California's Central Valley, orange grower Manuel Cunha calls it the most constrained since before World War II. Coastal tomato grower Luwanna Holmstrom constantly worries about a repeat of two years ago, when she had to plow under $2.5 million in tomatoes left unpicked. California and Arizona farmers - producers of half the nation's citrus and 90 percent of its vegetables and nuts - are struggling with an acute labor shortage. The situation, worsened by crackdowns on illegal immigration since 9/11, also extends to other...

PAHOKEE, Fla. (AP) -- Ernesto and Carmen Vasquez intend to celebrate the holidays at home despite the SUV-sized hole in their living-room ceiling - a calling card left by Hurricane Wilma - and the red "X" on their door marking the trailer as condemned. It's been one month since Wilma whipped through their Everglades mobile home park in western Palm Beach County, flattening many of their neighbors' homes, but the couple have yet to receive a visit from aid workers or local officials. Shelters here are scarce, so they plan to remain in their two-bedroom trailer with their two children...

The head of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. has endorsed a call for McDonalds to improve working conditions and raise the pay of its tomato pickers. In a letter released on Wednesday, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the two-million-member denomination, challenged the fast food chain giant to “put an end to human rights violations” by bringing an “adequate solution to the grievous conditions and sub-poverty wages of farmworkers.” "Farmworkers are explicitly excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, which denies them the right to organize, the right to negotiate with their employers, and the right to appeal grievances to...

It's the middle of harvest season for California raisin grapes, and only half of the farmworkers needed are in the fields. What holds for raisin grapes is happening widely in California agriculture. In the Central Valley alone, there is a shortage of from 70,000 to 80,000 workers to bring fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables to market, according to an estimate by the trade association Western Growers. Some growers are planting fewer acres than normal as they scramble to save the season. Western Growers is worried that the lack of workers -- mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America -- could...

It's the middle of harvest season for California raisin grapes, and only half of the farmworkers needed are in the fields. What holds for raisin grapes is happening widely in California agriculture. In the Central Valley alone, there is a shortage of from 70,000 to 80,000 workers to bring fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables to market, according to an estimate by the trade association Western Growers. Some growers are planting fewer acres than normal as they scramble to save the season. Western Growers is worried that the lack of workers -- mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America -- could...