Alma Magaña
Friends of Farmworkers
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"WORKERS' RIGHTS"

Before my summer at Friends of Farmworkers began, I had expected to encounter situations in which workers were being badly treated. However, my summer at Friends of Farmworkers had some surprises. The summer was spent on cases that involved workers who are in the United States on temporary workers visas. It is well known that undocumented workers sometimes suffer mistreatment at the hands of employers. Ironically, temporary workers with visas who come to this country under the U.S. legal system are not automatically protected by the U.S. legal system. H2-B (visas for nonagricultural unskilled labor) workers are at the mercy of employers for various reasons. To begin with, temporary worker’s visas are difficult to obtain especially for unskilled employment because of the high number of foreign workers competing for the visas. This means that the workers have lower bargaining power than the employer, and the employer can easily take advantage of the situation. Secondly, many times H2-B workers simply do not know their rights. Finally, even if the workers are willing to speak out against mistreatment they don’t always have the resources to hire someone to assist them with legal matters. Friends of Farmworkers, is an organization that is dedicated to addressing these issues.

A lot of this summer was spent on reaching out to workers to inform them of their rights. The second week of work I went with Jessica Stender, the paralegal, to the Mexican consulate in Philadelphia. As Mexican Nationals stood in line waiting their turn, Jessica stood in the middle of the crowded room rattling off, in Spanish, a list of workers’ rights. The other interns and I assisted Jessica in distributing Workers’ Rights Guides, which listed the basic rights that workers have whether they are documented or not. We handed out calendars, which are used by workers to keep their own records of hours worked. We also handed out other informational brochures. This was important not only because we informed individuals about their rights, but also the individuals would become familiar with the name Friends of Farmworkers. Other outreach involved going out to labor camps or homes of workers. This was the most important type of outreach but also the most disheartening. We visited the workers later in the evening once they were home and had a chance to shower and eat dinner. Often times the workers were exhausted, and it felt wrong to interrupt the few hours of rest they had. But they were more than willing to learn about what they could demand from their employer. Sometimes they used the information as a tool to demand their rights, but other times they listened respectfully with no intentions of complaining to their employers about rights they have been denied.

It took much courage but some workers did seek our assistance when they felt they were being treated unfairly. Usually the last straw for most of the workers was that employers were not treating them like human beings. In many cases, the employers simply saw workers as a tool to lower their costs and increase their profits. The workers who did come in seeking our assistance risked retaliatory action by the employer. The stakes were high, but many of the workers realized that in order to change the system someone had to speak out.

Finally, just letting workers know they have access to assistance made a huge difference. Art Read, the lead counsel, and the other attorneys spent many hours working on cases to gain relief for the aggrieved workers. Most of the workers are Spanish-speaking; therefore the majority of the staff is bilingual. The ability to speak directly to clients without the use of an intermediary made the process run smoothly. Sometimes the clients came in with simple problems that could be solved with a phone call and/or a letter. Other cases were complicated, and all the possible claims had to be examined carefully before deciding how to proceed. The attorney’s priorities were to first determine what the client wanted, but at the same time to decide how a particular case would bring long-term change.