Avocado day laborers, informal and exploited

Arturo Cano /II of V

Sent

La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, January 7, 2025, p. 3

San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mich., José de Jesús León Reyes is a plump man with an easy laugh who has been graying for some time. He has been in the business for 20 years and speaks in an avocado orchard with the Paricutin volcano in the background. He is the head of a crew of 14 cutters in which, he says, there is scramblethat is, the majority are young, but There I bring some from 55 years old, even 60 years old..

Contrary to what city dwellers might think, the most common accidents in the avocado industry do not occur in cutting, but in transportation. Sometimes the gang members fall asleep and turn around, there are many deaths there..

–And in the orchards?

–Well, the falls and the light cables.

–And if they don’t have insurance, who is responsible?

–Well, the fight is for one, the driver or the crew leader. You have to talk to the boss, cure them or pay the expenses.

The packages are owned by large American consortia (Calavo Growers, Fresh Del Monte, Mission Produce Inc, West Pak Avocado, among others), sometimes with local minority partners, and very jealous of what happens in their facilities. Despite the good offices of Michoacán authorities, it was not possible to obtain authorization to visit a packaging.

Day laborers, of course, do not work for large companies, but for a multitude of cutting companies. The intermediaries –of outsourcingthey were told before the law that in theory put an end to subcontracting – they also do not offer social security to their employees.

León Reyes explains it this way: “They have a lot of problems in accidents or if there is a death they have to pay and well it is not convenient for them. The insurance is expensive… The packaging is separated from everything.”

Thus, when an accident occurs, everything depends on good will of the pattern.

I have dropped them and hit them very badly. One day I dropped one and broke six ribs. Nothing else. Thank God I have not had any accidents involving power lines or on the road.

–Was that injured person registered in the IMSS?

-No. I went to the boss and thank God he cured him. In any case, if he doesn’t cure it, I have to cure it, because it is my obligation.

–And did he go back to work?

–Yes… but it’s not the same anymore. Some are even disabled, they can no longer walk and those are the ones who have to be supported for life, because they can no longer work.

The law against reality

Day laborers work six days a week and when the cut is whole (that is, well-loaded orchards) can earn 3 to 4 thousand pesos a week. When there is little work, the income of day laborers is 2,500 pesos per week.

And when they come to insure them, is it with the real salary?, the crew leader is asked.

The response is a laugh that completes a sentence: No! With the minimum, never with what we earn.

From time to time, state and federal governments announce membership campaigns, strengthening inspections, and fines. The powerful Association of Avocado Producers and Packers Exporters of Mexico (APEAM), which boasts its adherence to global objectives such as decent job and does a tenacious job of greenwashingattends meetings with officials and daily declares having all the will to formalize workers in the sector.

Speeches and laws go one way and reality another.

And the reality is, as the head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Julio Berdegué, wrote yesterday in these pages, that many day laborers do not access their social rights and work for employers who do not comply with labor laws.

In December 2021, Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla announced that he would work to achieve the affiliation of 340 thousand agricultural laborers – the majority in avocado, followed by lemon and berries– to Social Security.

Claudio Méndez Fernández, Secretary of Economic Development of the state government, offers a figure conservative: there are 120 thousand workers throughout the productive chain. Some of his cabinet colleagues double that number, perhaps because they consider the black figure of the irregular orchards.

–How many jobs have been formalized so that workers receive profit sharing and social security?

–We only have registered… boy, if I’m going at 22 thousand that’s a lot – says Secretary Méndez Fernández.

In other recent statements, the same official has regretted that 90 percent of avocado workers lack social security.

210 caliber

Óscar Santiago Chávez owns a small orchard in Caltzontzin –three quarters of a hectare, in the family for 50 years–, a community in Uruapan that General Lázaro Cárdenas helped found for the displaced from Paricutin.

In other words, Santiago owns an avocado farm that existed before the United States opened its border to Mexican avocados (1997).

He explains, not without some pride, the cutting process: first the largest fruits are cut (210 caliberrequires a day laborer, because of the grams they weigh). The cutters usually carry a small scale and weigh one that serves as a model. Then, they cut with a good knife’s eye. On the next cutting day they go for the 180 grams and so on.

The avocado cutters (from the Nahuatl word testicle) are armed with sticks that look like warriors’ spears, topped with a small knife and a bag. They cut with precision and the green fruit falls to begin its way to the markets.

Each cutter has their own way, although they generally cut the avocados from the lowest branches first. With a single movement, the fruit falls into the bag and is then deposited in the plastic boxes that will go to the packing house.

José Luis, a thirty-something cutter, throws the lasso, with the skill of a cowboy, until he manages to hook it on a branch that he considers strong enough to support its weight. Climb the same rope and then continue climbing, in search of the 210 caliber.

Climbing on a crane, Arturo Olmos, who is 35 years old and has been in the avocado industry for seven years, explains his work: there are We must have all the safety and safety measures, our hook disinfected, washed, that is good, to be able to have a good harvest technique..

He continues cutting while summarizing the employment situation of thousands: “we have no profits, no vacations, they don’t handle any of that… we work for marketing companies. The packaging has already put in many intermediaries to avoid all those types of expenses.”

–Have you had accidents?

“Yes, one,” he says with the calm of someone who accepts the hardships of the job. –I dislocated my shoulder. I had the bag hanging and the branch broke.

The day laborers agree that you earn well and they value the advantage of leaving early. The cutting companies set the departure time at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Sometimes the crew finishes the assigned area early. Sometimes we can leave at 12.

The victims

A simple search on the Internet reveals frequent accidents in the avocado industry. The majority of deaths, as crew chief León Reyes says, occur in transport vehicle accidents.

But there are also many cases such as one that the local press recorded on October 18: the death of Bernabé C. in the municipality of Peribán. He was electrocuted when his cutter spear hit a power line. He was from Chilapa, Guerrero, and worked in a crew with his relatives. I was 14 years old.