Tomato Picking Machine

In the era of The Grapes of Wrath, big ag arrived with machines that could do the work of hundreds of farm hands. Steinbeck writes, "Suddenly the machines pushed them out and they swarmed on the highways." The people became homeless. Their children were hungry.

"The hostility changed them, welded them, united them."

Machines could plow, sow, fertilize, and even harvest. But even today, some fruits and vegetables must be harvested by hand, because they need to be picked carefully and not broken—and because human labor can still be found cheap, and because our laws do not protect them from exploitation.

Last week, I went to Boston College to listen to a lecture by a farm worker looking to educate the educated. He was a tall, brown-skinned man speaking in Spanish. "My name is Raul, and I am a tomato picker from Immokalee, Florida. I am part of the Coalition of Immokelee Workers." (A member of the interfaith group working with the CIW translated.) His story is that of many migrant workers in this country. He picks tomatoes with nearly 18,000 others from October to May in Florida. Then they travel up the coast, following the season, working 10-to-14 hour days picking fruit by hand, bending over, threatened by bosses waving pistols, inhaling chemicals and pesticides, taking no breaks, earning less than minimum wage.

He tells us that tomato pickers are paid "by the bucket" and hefts a large, red plastic pail onto his shoulder to demonstrate. They earn on average 45 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes, a rate that has not risen significantly since 1978. "We do not have the legal right to overtime pay or to form a union. We don't have health insurance or sick days. In the most extreme conditions, farmworkers are held against their will and forced to work for little or no pay, facing conditions that meet the legal definition of slavery. Seven cases of slavery have been investigated and prosecuted by the CIW since 1998."

Despite his litany of sorrows, Raul does not want my pity. He says, "We want you to stand with us in solidarity to attain justice." Because the growers who employ tomato pickers are so bigoted and draconian, the pickers have gone straight to the corporations who buy the most tomatoes — and their customers. The CIW is not a union, but it has successfully brought Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, Whole Foods, and other corporations to the table. They've signed agreements that promise three things: (1) a moderate wage raise; (2) a code of conduct, including a no-tolerance policy against abuse and slavery; (3) a promise to include the CIW when negotiating price with growers. The CIW is currently working on a campaign to convince Ahold, the parent company of Stop & Shop and Giant, to sign this agreement.

As I listened to this strong, well-spoken man talk about his cause, I thought, None of this surprises me. I've known about these abuses and conditions for years, probably all of my life as a tomato buyer. It amazes me that this is the first time I'm considering changing my buying habits and choices based on this issue, but hearing a live person describe a day in his life is a wake-up call I can't ignore. It's the most basic human issue, one that has very little leeway for moral vacillation: Is it wrong to keep men at work by shooting a pistol in the air to scare them into working harder? Yes. Is it wrong to pay them ridiculously little money for ridiculously long hours at work in the hot sun? Yes. So is it wrong to buy tomatoes picked by these hands? I'd have to say, yes, and it's wrong not to say anything once you know it's happening. That's the easy part: In the lecture room, I look Raul right in the eye, and I don't avert my gaze.

Of course, once I leave the room, I don't have to look him in the eye anymore. There's no Abolitionist newspaper admonishing me to live a Christian life, and there's no way to know, looking at the labels, if my food has been picked by slaves.


To be straight with you, I don't eat fast food, and I don't buy groceries at Stop & Shop (in my opinion, an inferior store), but I certainly buy a lot of fresh tomatoes. I'm going to have to ask Russo's, Trader Joe's, and Hannaford's to answer a difficult question: Where do you buy wholesale tomatoes? Are you willing to pay one cent more so that the men who pick them can earn a decent wage? Otherwise, I'm going to have to buy my tomatoes elsewhere.

When people found out their clothes were being made in sweatshops, they boycotted those companies. Nike, for example, had to stop using sweatshop labor to stay in business. But nowadays, you can find people arguing that a crappy job in a sweatshop is better than no job at all.

If everybody stopped buying Florida tomatoes in March, what would all those 18,000 workers do that month to pay the rent? Raul says that right now, the frost in the South put them out of work, and they're standing in soup lines at the local churches. With hungry mouths to feed, is it responsible to put these men out of a job? Would I rather machines picked those tomatoes, too, so the moral question would be easier?

And, what about all the other fruits and vegetables I buy year-round? Where do they come from and who picks them?

Big props to Alex Sugerman-Brozan, Tikkun Olam Chair at Congregation Dorshei Tzedek, for bringing this issue to my attention.