POPLAR, CA – 11AUGUST20 – Filipino farmworkers pick table grapes in a field near Poplar, in the San Joaquin Valley. Most workers wear facemasks or bandannas as a protection against spreading the coronavirus. Teresita Mateo came from Laoag, in Ilocos Norte province of the Philippines.
FARMWORK IN THE ERA OF COVID-19
By David Bacon
The Progressive, On the Line, 2/5/21
The infection rate from the COVID virus is much higher in the rural counties of California than it is in the cities. In Tulare County, more than 40,000 people had contracted the virus as of mid-January, and more than 500 people had died.
Yet throughout this summer and fall, farmworkers went into the county’s orchards to harvest fruit. Workers are essential, since if they didn’t do this work the grapes, pluots and persimmons would rot on the trees, and supermarket shelves would be bare. But being essential during the COVID era also means that workers are forced to put themselves at risk of infection in the orchards because they have no money to pay rent or buy food if they don’t.
In the trees and under the vines farmworkers do the best they can to take care they don’t get sick. Most wear masks or bandannas, although women especially have always worn bandannas at work. In addition to protecting against infection, they filter out dust. Most important for many, they provide a kind of shield against unwanted attention from men.
Even in a good crew with a responsible foreman, workers almost invariably have to bring their own shears, bags and masks. Summer temperature in the Tulare fields get up to 110 degrees. The masks are hot and uncomfortable, but workers are already challenging accepted wisdom by wearing many layers of clothing, which they say does a better job of insulating against the heat than showing up for work in a teeshirt.
Still, wearing protection and being uncomfortable – cold in November’s persimmons and hot in July’s pluots and August’s grapes – is not really a choice if you have a family to support. And if it’s the price of not getting sick, then workers pay it.