California farmworkers in state labor investigations will soon be able to access free legal services to safely report bad-acting employers, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
In efforts to prevent labor exploitation, a new $4.5 million pilot program will ensure farmworkers can fend for their rights despite their immigration status with free case review services, legal advice and attorney representation.
An estimated 50 percent of California’s farmworkers are undocumented, which leaves the workforce vulnerable to bad acting employers and disproportionately unlikely to report labor claims, said Newsom’s office.
Newsom said that the program will provide more tools for farmworkers, so they no longer have to worry about the fear of deportation or difficulties finding work without work authorization during cases of exploitation.
“Farmworkers are the backbone of our economy and we won’t stand by as bad actors use the threat of deportation as a form of exploitation,” said Newsom in a statement. “In the absence of Congress modernizing our broken, outdated immigration system, California continues our efforts to support immigrant families.”
Since 2015, California has funded free immigration legal services through nonprofit partnerships. The California Labor & Workforce Development and the California Department of Social Services, which will oversee the pilot, will utilize existing resources to launch the program later this year.
To be eligible, farmworkers must be involved in cases under review by Department of Industrial Relations’ Labor Commissioner’s Office, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health or the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Services will be available based on capacity and population estimates.
“The time is now for us to ensure that immigrant labor rights are upheld and respected. We commend the state for supporting this pilot, which will help ensure that legal services are available and accessible through partnerships with trusted community-based organizations across California,” said Maria Elena De La Garza, executive director of the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County.
The announcement came on the heels of the Biden Administration’s recent policy change that streamlines deferred action for undocumented people who are victims or witnesses of violations of labor rights.
“Prosecutorial discretion ensures that farmworkers will be empowered to enforce their labor rights and stand up against the abuse and exploitation they often face,” said Diana Tellefson Torres, Chief Executive Officer of the UFW Foundation.
34 comments
I’m cool with helping farm workers.
Me too. If it wasn’t for them. Fruits and veggies wouldn’t be affordable.
Keep drinking coolaid. The most labor-intensive crop is strawberry. UC Davis estimates it takes ~700 hours of labor per acre, mostly in harvest time. Accordingly, the cost of labor in the supermarket price of strawberries is extraordinarily high – about 30% of it.
But nothing else comes even close to that. The next most labor-intensive crop is lettuce, which takes ~270 hrs/acre and broccoli at ~210 hrs/acre. Everything else is about 100 hrs labor per acre or less. The cost of labor in the supermarket price of these fruits/veggies is negligible, at about 10%. The rest is the cost of materials, irrigation, fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides – and supermarket margin.
So – no, it’s not true that raising farmworkers’ wages will double or triple the price of fruits/veggies. And it’s not true that Americans are too lazy to harvest their own fruit/veg. There are countries, like Australia, that don’t rely on illegal immigrants in their agriculture. Instead they have a program for students (including international ones) to work during harvest and also travel around Australia. And there are American students participating in this program.
Awesome Newsom did it again! Thank you for protecting the weak. Maybe you can be the president and make it a federal law.
If they are hiring illegals they need to be put in jail.
Newsom does nothing unless its for himself
Where have you been?
… it’s not free – where does Newscum think the $4.5M is coming from? … does he think we don’t pay attention to these “free” services he provides?
all he wants is votes so he can rule the world, he cares about noone but himself
Free!
That money comes from you and I.
Way to spend more money on ILLEGALS who have willingly BROKEN a law.
Way to support the HARD WORKING LEGALLY constituents by using OUR money to support another CRIME.
What in your opinion should be the punishment for all of the farms who have hired people who aren’t legal citizens?
Chuq
I am not a legal expert … so I can not provide legal advice. But I am sure that there are laws being broken by the farmers who are hiring illegals. I would think tax implications, as they are likely not paying the appropriate worker taxes. There may even be OSHA violations .. but I dont know. I dont work on a farm and I never have.
My comments are isolated to Newscum spending more money on folks are already breaking the law instead of prosecuting them. Nothing is illegal in CA anymore …
I’m guessing then he’ll get blamed for higher food cost. There’s no winning and there ain’t no making people who can’t be happy happy.
People complain about the “illegals” but when will they complain about those that hire them? How about making the employer pay for the legal assistance?
Did they bring their families? Cost per year per student in grade school is $21,000 according to a California .gov source. We pay that, not them. Whatever you pretend you are saving for cheap lettuce in Safeway is more than lost in taxes.
Unless you actually write them a check for school, I don’t see how you can claim that you are paying for theirs children education.
You think that you pay for their children education through the property tax. But don’t they indirectly pay the property tax? Theirs landlords already add the property tax to the rent. by paying rent, they are paying the property tax. So they are paying for child education.
You are seriously telling me illegals pay $21,000 in taxes each and every year for each of their kids so it’s not our tax money that is paying for them? I think you are way off on that. And in anticipation of your response, I’m sure lots of citizens don’t generate that either, but they are citizens, that is the difference.
Nope, I didn’t say any amount of tax the illegals generate. My point is that they paying property tax and thus should get the education. It is the matter of principle.
By the way, thank for bring up that citizen might not generate 21k for each child education. In that case, we all are parasites when sent the kids to school. Welcome to socialism comrade🫡🤗
As long as your comments are coming from Russia where you are and live,nothing you say even matters but to you,and being self important and completely unAmerican is your best quality
When a new group of farm workers come into the country to stay, after the farming season how many generations keep farming? We used to have a bracero program where farm workers from Mexico would come here for the season and then go home. If they went home their money lasted longer. Now we have to get new farm hands ever year but they stay.
Oh cool and another thing they do with tax money without asking the people to vote on it. What could go wrong. I’m totally cool with people that have allowed their home country to turn into a cesspool and instead of being strong and fixing their problems, they can just come here, no standards, that’s so cool. I’m so glad I have liberals running my country. Isn’t it so cool. On the flipside, isn’t it cool the conservatives don’t do anything….man what a cool party I wish I could get elected as a senator and pass bills to protect my donors, while I allow millions of people to come into my country and scab jobs and take up massive tax funded resources. It’s so cool and then they become citizens. Wow that’s such a cool little neat trick and then they start getting into positions of power and then they vote against my peoples interest. Wow what a cool concept. Wow, multiculturalism is so cool.
There is NO benefits to diversity,esp illegally arranged diversity.” in Govt.
People like Joe Biden are complete liars when they say they want diversity.,Joe didnt want his kids going to a school that was a “racial jungle” because it had a large population of blacks,and Obama is the “first clean and articulate black” in his govt.Even giggles Harris said he’s a racist,but she thinks everyone is.Not one word of what appears on the teleprompter that he didn’t author has any shred of truth to it,and he doesn’t care.or even know.
Liberals will believe ANYTHING they are told as long as they didn’t hear it from Trump.
Bill Cutting, Thank you for your comment. Smart and sensible very refreshing.
Isn’t it funny they help undocumented workers. I think we have an economic problem here. They used to have a program when I was a kid and living in an agricultural area for workers to come up from Mexico. They stayed in some boxcar apartments. Thing is business can’t afford to pay the ever rising minimum wage so they use undocumented. It’s a risk for the employer as well as the employee. The workers income goes a lot farther back home.
.
Like I have said and I don’t think people don’t get it here, our standard of living is about three times what it should be. But things will be better when the US economy crashes which appears to be happening soon. Just keep those Orwellian goose-stepping bureaucrats out of control.
It’s just another example of one of the very few things liberal California government actually does:
Take money from hard working citizens.
Dole the money out to buy more votes and power.
Bad actors need to go! They leave the workforce vulnerable to bad acting employers. What about regular citizens vulnerable to bad acting residents (aka criminals) can we fix that too?
Why not provide additional funds (since you are so free with tossing our money around) towards prosecution of crime that is so rampant around here. I can agree with protecting the 50% of legal immigrants with some legal representation (though it should be done by all the organization around instead of from tax payers) from bad acting employers, but not protecting illegal aliens from being deported. Of course, I would hate to hear what someone as out of touch with normalcy like gavvy thinks is a bad acting employer.
For CRIMINALS
FTFY, OP.
Deportation should be the only service provided to illegals.
And the employers who hire illegals should pay for their deportations.
“We here in the nation state of California blah blah blah.”
I believe it’s nice to help people, especially those with the goal of citizenship. However we all know our Governor is a knucklehead not especially interested in helping our legal citizens improve their quality of life.
When we board an aircraft we are instructed to put our own oxygen mask on first, then help others. If our Governor employed a similar philosophy where legal Californians receive assistance first, veterans, the elderly, and the homeless would be in a much better place.
Newscum is leading the way..to flush this state completely down the toilet.
Nothing is free to illegals when things like this get pushed, it’s all taxpayers paying for it!
I get it, but holy cow get over it people quit giving handouts of our taxes to illegals!
Newsom views California as his personal ranch. Therefore he feels entitled to milk the tax cattle and fritter away the proceeds on his capricious whims.
Hmmm! Every time I go grocery shopping I read the fruit and vegetables’ labels and the vast majority of it is imported from Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Brasil. Other perishable and non-perishable food products are also imported.
Pony up again Taxpayers! And support your local illegal activites–AGAIN.
Talk about a slap in the face. The Illegals have been taking jobs from Americans since the 40s. My grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins are cotton pickers and fruit pickers. The illegals don’t care that they have brought down wages of American farm workers. American children have died from starvation and other sicknesses because of the illegals. This is not a group of victims. 40 percent of farm workers are illegals, taking jobs away from Americans. Don’t believe the lies that Americans don’t want the jobs . Get your heads out of the clouds and realize Americans are the victims. This is a shameful act by our Govenor.
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