Mar 21, 2017
Dozens of day-labor farm workers (jornaleros) demanded improved wages, democratic representation, an end to sexual harassment and access to clean water as they marched across Mexico in a national caravan, “Fair Wages and Dignified Life.”

A proposed new law would make it much harder for farm workers to get compensation for job injuries. Credit: Solidarity Center/Gladys Cisneros
The workers, who left Baja California March 4 and arrived in Mexico City on March 17, sought to raise renewed awareness of their struggle for decent working conditions in the San Quintin Valley and hold employers accountable for their failure to uphold agreements reached in 2015. Although the settlement negotiated in 2015 included raising day wages to between 150 and 180 pesos (approximately $7 to $9), these wage levels have been unevenly applied.
“We are here to demand the same things we have been asking for, for two years,” says Lorenzo Rodriguez, general secretary of the SINDJA union.
Following the 2015 jornaleros strike, workers formed a national independent union that has grown to include farm workers from four Mexican states. Registering their independent union, SINDJA, is the only demand that has been met so far, say union leaders. Workers negotiated the agreement with the government, but the agribusiness owners and growers must comply.
“We don’t even have the right to live,” says farm worker leader Bonifacio Martinez. “And with proposed new government reforms, we are forbidden to get sick at work,” he adds, referring to proposed legislation that would place government and employers, not medical professionals, in charge of determining whether an injury is work-related.
A 2015 Los Angeles Times series found many workers on export-oriented farms “essentially trapped for months at a time in rat-infested camps, often without beds and sometimes without functioning toilets or a reliable water supply.”
The national caravan included families of the 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa, who continue to seek answers and justice. The march coincided with the two-year anniversary of a historic 12-week strike and popular mobilization in the San Quintin Valley.
May 18, 2016
Some of the 245 Zimbabwe migrant farm workers brutalized and evicted last September from a large farm in South Africa, where many had toiled for years, have now been vindicated in court.
In a recent court hearing in South Africa, a judge rejected the farm owner’s argument that the workers were on extended strike and should not be compensated or reinstated. The judge offered the workers back pay or reinstatement, and the seven workers present opted for reinstatement to the farm at the legally determined wage.
The judge indicated he could reinstate only workers who were present, and with the assistance of South African Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU), the seven workers have begun searching for the other workers.
Zimbabwe Migrant Farm Workers Driven from Their Homes
Last August, the Zimbabwean migrant farm workers, who labored on four vegetable farms operated by Johannesburg Farm, asked for a 59-cent-per-day pay increase. The workers, who were paid $120 month, roughly half the legal minimum wage, regularly put in 12-hour days, seven days a week, and were forced to toil 17-hour days during the harvest.
In September and according to witnesses, a group of men led by the farm owner fired rubber bullets at the workers’ homes, setting some on fire to drive workers out of their houses, where they were assaulted and clubbed. One of the workers, Edias, told Solidarity Center staff that he and four other workers were then kidnapped, tortured and interrogated for hours before police arrived. (For farm workers’ safety, we are using first names only.)
Unable to look for other jobs because the farm owner had confiscated their work papers, Edias and the others traveled to a refugee camp in Lephalale, South Africa, where they arrived in December near starvation.
Criminal Case and Wage Case Pending
Two other cases are pending. One involves a criminal hearing, set for late August, on the kidnapping and torture of the farm workers. South Africa’s Labor Department is leading the second case, which focuses on the issue of wage law violations. The Labor Department has the authority to demand back wages to January 1, 2015—which total more than $100,000—and assess penalties for violating the law.
Along with FAWU and the Migrant Workers’ Union of South Africa (MIWUSA), the Solidarity Center has provided key support to the Zimbabwe migrant workers, enabling them to be represented in court, offering material aid, generating public attention for their plight and raising awareness of the often brutal working conditions of migrant workers across South Africa.
The workers who are returning to the farm say they will post the ruling on minimum wages for farm workers and tell Solidarity Center staff that they feel vindicated—like human beings with standing and rights, according to one worker.
Mar 13, 2013

A judge ordered Fidel Polo (left) reinstated to his job after he was fired for speaking out about poor working conditions. Credit: Samantha Tate
Fidel Polo Sanchez, a union leader fired for speaking publicly about the egregious conditions of farm workers in Peru, should be reinstated to his job, a judge ruled this week. Sociedad Agrícola Viru, one of Peru’s largest agricultural export plantations, fired Polo July 12, 2012, for “defamation.”
Polo, legal defense secretary for the Agrícola Viru Workers Union, was leading a campaign to change a labor law launched as a “temporary measure” in 2000 to foster the growth of new exports. The law enables employers to offer sub-minimum wages and provide fewer benefits and protections than those provided to other private-sector workers under Peruvian labor law. The law has enabled the plantation to become one of the most profitable companies in Peru’s booming agriculture-for-export sector.
The agricultural export industry employs some 300,000 people, more than 70 percent of whom are women who toil between 12 and 14 hours a day in miserable conditions. These workers are often denied their right to freedom of association through anti-union practices.
On May 15, 2012, Polo appeared on a local television program to talk about the campaign and discuss Agrícola Viru’s failure to provide safe and decent working conditions despite workers’ sacrifices. In response, plantation management alleged that Polo had stated falsehoods about the company, including, “[workers] have to buy their own safety equipment” and “[we work in] in inadequate conditions.”
In fact, the Peruvian Ministry of Labor has repeatedly fined Agrícola Viru over the past three years for failing to provide workers with proper safety equipment, for denying labor inspections and for egregious working conditions.
The company also filed a criminal charge against Polo, and that case is still pending.