On Strawberries: Stand With Pickers

We applaud the Undergraduate Council resolution calling on Harvard Dining Services (HDS) to endorse a nation-wide campaign to improve the working conditions for strawberry pickers in California. As a large-scale food operation and part of the University, HDS should take this opportunity to support the health and safety of agricultural workers.

The council has rightly joined the call of numerous businesses, including Star Market and other supermarkets nationally, to highlight the lack of clean drinking water, health insurance and basic sanitation in the agricultural camps. Many of the strawberry workers are Mexican migrants legally working within the United States. These workers deserve basic humane treatment, regardless of their occupation, nationality or citizenship status.

The strawberry workers want to join the United Farm Workers (UFW), the branch of the AFL-CIO founded by Cesar Chavez, which has fought for and won better living conditions and benefits for employees in the wine-grape, rose and mushroom industries and which has led an important boycott against the table-grape industry for continuing to spray their fields and the nearby neighborhoods with oil-based toxic pesticides. Harvard has participated in the table-grape boycott since the 1980s, and we hope their active participation in that fight will inspire their thinking about the strawberry pickers.

The 20,000 strawberry workers in California work long days stooping close to the ground and being paid for the number of boxes they pick. The workers have no health or accident insurance and often live in crowded camps without adequate sanitation. Workers that have tried to meet with the UFW have been harassed by their employers and have been threatened with being fired.

While the current drive does not call for a boycott, we encourage the council and HDS to become vocal supporters of this resolution to improve the lives of strawberry workers and to be amiable towards a boycott if the labor coalition feels that a boycott becomes necessary. For now, a simple endorsement by HDS is all that this being called for; HDS should move quickly to help improve these workers' lives.