Workers killed in a massacre at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay on Monday were working for low wages and living in conditions the San Mateo County prosecutor called “miserable.”
The local nonprofit Ayudando Latinos a Soñar regularly visited one of the farms, California Terra Garden, to provide workers and their families with food and supplies, “due to the high cost of life and the low incomes they earn,” said executive director Belinda Hernandez. -Arriaga.
Called the deadliest mass shooting in San Mateo County history, in which a gunman killed seven people and injured another, quickly drew attention to poor conditions living conditions and low wages for farm workers across the state, which advocacy organizations say is the norm in the industry. .
“It’s indicative of the reality that many California farmworkers live in,” said Antonio De-Loera Brust, communications director for the United Farm Workers union. “It’s tragic that it took a shocking act of violence and seven lost lives to draw attention to him, but it’s a reality not just in the Half Moon Bay area but across California.”
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe mentioned the poor conditions during a press conference Wednesday. The county executive had called him that morning and said, “Now we know that and we have to act on it.”
Abraham Perez, 50, told The Chronicle he worked at the California Terra Garden but left because of harsh working conditions and demanding managers. He got a new job as a butcher in a small grocery store. He was not at the farm at the time of the shooting, but knew one of the victims, Martin “Marciano” Martinez-Jimenez, when they were young men living in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called out the farms for their treatment of workers at a press conference Tuesday in Half Moon Bay. He met with farm workers and other community members about the shooting.
“Some of you should see where these people live, the conditions they’re in. Living in shipping containers, making $9 an hour,” he said. “No health care, no support services.”
After the press conference, Newsom spokesman Daniel Villaseñor said the governor was not trying to single out any particular farm, but rather was speaking generally about the conditions he had heard about from the workers he worked with. he had spoken that day.
Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former state legislator who now leads the California Federation of Labor, said the legislature and governor have worked to ensure state labor laws prohibit farm workers from being paid below the state minimum wage of $15.50, including one she wrote to demand that farm workers be paid overtime. Last year, Newsom signed legislation making it easier for farm workers to unionize. Gonzalez Fletcher said Newsom’s comments show the state needs to do more to enforce these laws.
“If he hears first hand that these workers are being paid less than minimum wage…why isn’t this being investigated?” she says. “There’s a crime happening right in front of the governor.”
After The Chronicle published an early version of this story, Newsom announced that his administration was investigating the farms involved in the shooting “to ensure workers are treated fairly and with the compassion they deserve,” according to a report. release from Villasenor.
“The conditions the farm workers shared with the governor — being paid $9 an hour and living in shipping containers — are nothing short of deplorable,” Villaseñor wrote. “Our country depends on their backbreaking work, but Congress can’t even provide them with the stability to raise families and work in this country without fear of deportation, which contributes to their vulnerability in the workplace. ain’t a way to live.”
California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the Office of the Labor Commissioner are “investigating potential occupational and occupational safety and health violations for the Half Moon Bay job sites where the mass shootings took place.” place,” said Erin Hickey, spokeswoman for the department. industrial relations.
California Terra Garden spokesman David Oates denied that Newsom was referring to this Half Moon Bay farm. About 27 people, including spouses and children of the workers, live in trailers and camper vans at the site, which he says “are not elaborate accommodation, but they are certainly comfortable”. Some workers live elsewhere, but those on the property pay landlords around $300 in rent a month, Oates said. They earn between $16.50 and $20 an hour, plus benefits, he said.
“They’re like family,” Oates said of the California Terra Garden workers, who were moved to local hotels following the shooting. “Any characterization anyone would try to make that he was treated to anything, but that’s incorrect.”
Owners of Concord Farms, the second site of Monday’s rampage, did not respond to requests for comment. It is not known if any workers lived on this property.
For farmworker advocates, Newsom’s comments were a stark reminder of the status quo in American agriculture.
“The living conditions are disgraceful,” said Ann López, director of the Center for Farmworker Families based in Felton in Santa Cruz County. “They live on the edge of poverty, many of them in misery. They wash clothes in pits in the garden.
Since the majority of farm workers are undocumented, Gonzalez Fletcher said they are often unaware of their rights and unaware that they can report farm owners to authorities and enjoy limited immunity from terrorism. expulsion.
López said fear of eviction means farmworkers rarely talk about potential wage violations.
“There is no minimum wage among agricultural workers,” López said. “It’s what producers are willing to pay and what farm workers are willing to work for.”
Although she has heard of a few farms in the area offering fair working conditions, low wages and substandard housing are systemic throughout the industry. Housing prospects for workers are particularly poor due to very high rents.
She said she knew a group of 16 adults living in a 1,000 square foot apartment who had to queue every morning to use the bathroom.
A small mountain of flowers had piled up in a park in downtown Half Moon Bay on Wednesday afternoon, a colorful bounty to which Rita Mancera added three hand-made signs of support with messages written in Chinese, Spanish and English. Mancera, executive director of the nonprofit Puente de la Costa Sur, said the shooting only added to the already overwhelming array of housing, immigration and health care issues facing communities face, she said.
Through her work with her nonprofit, Mancera said she’s seen farmworkers living in cramped spaces with an entire family crammed into one room.
“Families feel they cannot speak out for fear of losing their homes,” she said.
In recent years, the state has allocated funds to build housing for farmworkers, though Gonzalez Fletcher said that hasn’t been enough to meet needs.
A 2017 report found that about 70% of workers in San Mateo County live on the property they operate, many of them in makeshift and crowded conditions.
De-Loera Brust said it’s common to see farm owners offer housing to workers under the federal government’s H-2A visa program, which allows U.S. employers who meet specific requirements, including providing housing, bringing foreign nationals to the United States for temporary agricultural employment. .
“We find that employers often cut corners to cut costs and housing conditions can be really atrocious,” he said.
The shooting may spur United Farm Workers to organize in Half Moon Bay, in part because of Newsom’s comments about working conditions, De-Loera Brust said.
Darlene Tenes, who started distributing supplies to farm workers during the pandemic through her Farmworkers Caravan program, just visited one of the farms in December. She handed out tamales and Christmas stockings to the workers and their children, and saw the trailers they lived in.
“In general, agricultural workers are still under severe strain,” she said. “They work 40 to 70 hours a week; they work hard; and they live in poverty. … They are under a lot of stress.
On Wednesday morning, Tenes was busy collecting donations for the San Jose Women’s Center to provide to displaced families from the farms where the shooting took place.
About 40 families were forced to leave their belongings behind following the shooting and are now staying at a nearby motel, she said.
Gonzalez Fletcher said the immense stress farm workers are under may have been a factor in the shooting.
Police have charged Chunli Zhao, 66, who worked at the California Terra Garden, with seven counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and other counts related to the shooting.
“Working in these conditions at this age, the mental health pressure that would be put on a person has to be taken into account,” she said. “It’s part of the cycle of abuse that happens to these human beings.”
Authorities called the massacre an “incident of workplace violence,” but no further details of a potential motive have been released.
Chronicle writer Matthias Gafni contributed to this report.
Sophia Bollag, Elena Kadvany, Nora Mishanec and Jessica Flores are the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: sophia.bollag@sfchronicle.com, elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com, nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com, jessica.flores@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophiaBollag, @ekadvany, @jessmflores
