"'Everyone Is Tired of Always Staying Silent': Inside a Worker Rebellion in the Central Valley", 16 Dec 2020

...In April, after employees [at Primex] requested the right to bring in masks to wear on the job, the company allegedly prohibited it. When it relented and allowed masks, it sold them for $8 apiece, according to several workers. (Primex denies ever selling masks.)

...Sick workers who stayed home went unpaid, so some kept coming to work with hacking coughs. Primex remained tight-lipped about any illnesses...

On June 23, Primex told a local news channel that 31 workers had tested positive for COVID-19. Employees who saw the broadcast were shocked: The company hadn’t told them about the cases, which it had confirmed about two weeks earlier... Primex didn’t comment on the alleged lack of communication to employees, but stated in an email: “We began implementing anti–virus spreading steps long before the CDC guidelines were published. We are proud to say that we are one of the cleanest and most sanitized plants in the industry"...

The federal government estimates that half of farmworkers are undocumented... Undocumented workers don’t benefit from federal coronavirus relief measures, such as expanded unemployment insurance. While federal legislation and policy expansions by California Gov. Gavin Newsom eventually granted essential food workers two weeks of paid sick leave, or “COVID pay,” enforcement has been spotty...

Even without this shroud of silence, agricultural workers are especially vulnerable to the pandemic...

It’s no surprise that farmworker organizing and labor actions are a rarity. Less than 2 percent of farmworkers are unionized...

...[T]here have been blips of COVID-related organizing up and down the West Coast...

CAUSE helped the workers [at Rancho Laguna Farms, which supplies for Driscoll's], who are not unionized, file a complaint with the state and put together an online petition signed by 60,000 people...The petition’s success appears to have done the trick: Driscoll’s president got on the phone with workers, and the farm owner agreed to increase the rate to $2.10 per flat. Driscoll’s noted that it “had limited involvement regarding the wage discussions as that would have interfered with the operations of the separate and independent business of Rancho Laguna Farms.” In a public statement, Rancho Laguna’s owner promised to ensure that workers feel safe, adding that he should have met with his employees before calling the sheriff...

[Also refers to Cargill, JBS, Smithfield, Taco Bell & Walmart]