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What are the key concepts?

Structural violence: Structural violence is the way in which current socioeconomic hierarchies are set up to inflict physical and mental damage against certain marginalized groups.

Symbolic violence: Symbolic violence is when inequities are accepted as normal, thus letting these injustices fester and thrive.

Connection to my topic?

Structural and symbolic violence as defined by Holmes are at the crux of the temporary visa issue, more specifically its one employer rule. Immigrants working in the farms are prone to discrimination from managers, inequitable labor practices, including long working hours, little pay, and health problems from an increased risk of Type II diabetes to damage to physical joints. Already migrant workers are in suboptimal working conditions and with the one employer rule their difficulties are further exacerbated. Workers are afraid to speak up at risk of losing their jobs and facing deportation. Thus these structures set up within the farms not only lead to physically damaging effects on workers but also psychological turmoil as workers feel that they can’t speak up in the face of oppression. Additionally, these conditions have solidified symbolic violence. For example, when Holmes talks to some Triqui workers, he realizes that they internalize “body differences” as ways to “deflect blame from the farm for the responsibility for pesticide exposure and its health effects” (Holmes 172). Thus, employers are allowed to continue exploiting their workers, letting the conditions be seen as ‘normal’ when they shouldn’t be.

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Counterargument: The rise in unions is not enough to justify the continuation of the one employer rule

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Counterargument: The rise in unions is not enough to justify the continuation of the one employer rule

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Why is this not enough to improve the labor rights of migrant workers?

"SINDJA says workers take home as little as $6 for a 15-hour workday and that child labor is still rampant. They say workers are subject to wage theft and are not provided health insurance despite regular exposure to harmful chemicals. Female workers report sexual harassment by field managers... “There was a small increase in pay, but it was accompanied by an increased workload,” she says" (Varner, 2016)

"Even when independent unions in the border area manage to get government recognition, they are often undermined by rival unions backed by the state or owners who are deeply vested in an economic model based on cheap labor" (Varner, 2016)

Even after unionizing, there are still issues that have yet to be solved under the temporary working visa. This highlights the need for change at a national level which means overall policy change to ensure that labor rights are being met without only unions fighting for their rights. Obviously, the rise in unionization has not fixed all labor issues. While they have undoubtedly led to some momentous changes for labor rights, they are bogged down by external factors and unable to advocate for all of their needs.

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Proposed rule change to H-2 - Department of Homeland Security

Temporary work visa programs and the need for reform - Daniel Costa, 2021

LOCAL FARM LABOR CONTRACTOR, GROWERS CITED $1.9M FOR WAGE THEFT, The Business Journal Staff, 2023

They put food on our tables but live in the shadows. This man is fighting to be seen - Ximena Bustillo, Andrea Hsu 2023

The people who pick your berries in Washington will now be represented by a union - Natasha Varner, 2016

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SUNNYSIDE, Wash. - Jose Martinez has lived and worked in the United States since he was 14 years old. Now 67, he drives around the Yakima Valley in Washington state checking on fellow workers.

"When it's hot, do you have a place to protect yourself from the sun and heat?" he calls out to some workers on the side of an apple orchard on a sunny June morning.

Martinez worked in agriculture across the fields of California and, most recently, Washington state. Irrigation, grapes, apples, mushrooms, dairies and now cherries. He's done a little bit of everything.

"I love the fields because you're in the open air," he told NPR in his native Spanish, sitting on the lawn outside his home in Sunnyside, Wash. "It's beautiful. I am proud to do it, to be a farmworker. Why not?"

When people think of farmworkers, often they think of migrant workers and labor organizers like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Now, they may add another name to those creating major changes in the farming workplace: Jose Martinez.

Over the past decade, Martinez has been central to two flagship lawsuits creating policy changes in the state - making Washington one of the leaders in providing overtime to farmworkers and settling acivil rights case in favor of workers. And recently, he has taken his fight to Washington, D.C., where he has pushed for an expansion of legal status and protections for farmworkers.

Federally, farmworkers are largely excluded from many federal workplace safety regulations. They don't have a right to overtime pay or to unionize, and children as young as 12 can legally work in the fields. As a result, some states, like Washington, have extended additional rights and regulations.

President Biden came into office with the goal of expanding protections to farmworkers, including providing a pathway to legal status, overtime pay, sick leave and protection from heat exposure. But despite being the self-proclaimed most pro-labor president, his administration has faced roadblocks such as stalled nominations and legislation in Congress, and slow rulemaking, to make big changes a reality.

Martinez's route to legal advocacy has not been easy

The Washington worker's journey to becoming an activist began nearly 14 years ago. That's when Martinez began working in a dairy.

"At that dairy is when I started to see workplace violations and abuses from the foremen to the workers," Martinez recalled. "And that's when I began to do something about the rights that we have as workers in the fields."

Martinez said that while working, he and his fellow farmworkers didn't get lunch or other breaks.

So he sought the help of Columbia Legal Services, a law firm in Washington that, in part, focuses on immigration issues.

"We began to fight and that overtime [for farmworkers] was born within the state of Washington," he said.

The lawsuit he filed argued that a failure to provide overtime pay violates state protections against discrimination.

"In that dairy, you had to eat with a taco in one hand and work," he recalled. "There were chemicals, rats. You had to eat and run among the cows. They said it was an eight-hour shift, but sometimes it was 12. And we were not paid overtime."

Due to a Jim Crow-era exemption in federal law, most farmworkers in the U.S. do not have the right to overtime pay.

Martinez wins overtime for dairy workers in the state

In the fall of 2020, the Washington Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that dairy workers should be entitled to overtime pay.

"Wow, I felt so emotional," Martinez said, remembering how he reacted to the court's decision.

The Washington state legislature then created a law to provide overtime for all farmworkers, a phased-in process that has already begun. By 2024, farmers will have to pay workers overtime after 40 hours.

Other states, including California, Colorado and New York, have passed their own laws in recent years requiring additional pay for people working on farms specifically.

Martinez said not all workers have been happy with the deal. As an unintended consequence, farmers are hiring more workers to avoid paying overtime wages, resulting in lower wages overall for some longtime employees. While some advocates say they expected this to happen in some instances, Martinez told NPR he did not.

"There are a few different points of view," he acknowledged, saying that some workers blame him for their now-smaller paychecks. "But why don't we work the same long hours and get paid better? Why don't they pay us better?"

Some farmworkers want to get rid of the overtime law. Martinez sees it differently. He's going for bigger change - higher wages so that farmworkers don't feel they need to work 60 to 70 hours a week in harvest season to make enough to live on.

"I had faith that when I start something, I will finish it and it will be done," he said. "I've never been afraid."

A civil rights lawsuit rises out of a mushroom farm

Martinez ultimately quit the dairy. He moved on to work for a fruit packing company, which he said had better working conditions. But the company closed to become a winery. In 2020, he began work only a few miles away at Ostrom Mushroom Farms, a mushroom producer later acquired by the Canadian company Windmill Farms.

Just over a year after being at Ostrom, Martinez reached out to the United Farm Workers, an organization that he recalled from his years on farms in the San Joaquin Valley in California. He voiced concerns over poor treatment from supervisors and went public about COVID-19 outbreaks. During those conversations Martinez tipped off a lawsuit through the state attorney general's office over gender discrimination.

In the spring of 2023, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the mushroom farm would pay $3.4 million to about 170 workers, resolving a lawsuit "asserting unfair, deceptive and discriminatory actions against female farmworkers and Washington-based workers."

Ferguson told NPR that while he believes this is a case of a very bad actor, it won't be his office's last case and farmworkers are among the workers in the most difficult position to advocate for themselves.

"They may not be documented, they may not speak English, there are restrictions that make it difficult," Ferguson explained, as to why they may not speak up.

Martinez agrees that getting workers to want to talk is a challenge.

"It was really hard at first to convince the workers [to speak up]," Martinez said. "First thing they said is 'they'll chase me out; I have bills to pay and a family.'"

Martinez, who has legal status, says workers who are undocumented are even more afraid to voice concerns. It is estimated that over half of all farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented and those on visas are tied to their employers for housing, transportation and documentation.

"There is sometimes a misunderstanding about the rights that we have as workers," Martinez said. "But when we are working somewhere, we do have rights to a certain extent."

During the pandemic, he noticed workers were arriving on seasonal H-2A visas, and women were particularly being laid off.

"I told them I also have a family, but I want to stop this and what they are doing is not right - they are violating your rights as a worker and we all have rights," Martinez explained.

He's now leading a unionization effort at the mushroom farm. But should a union ever be recognized, Martinez won't be part of it. His employment was terminated on April 20 for unsatisfactory performance upon evaluation and "no improvement in the allocated time," according to an employment separation form obtained by NPR.

Hanging on the wall of his living room are certificates from Ostrom for having the best attendance just months before being laid off.

"I am proud of my roots," Martinez said. "And I will keep fighting to make changes to benefit future generations."

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They put food on our tables but live in the shadows. This man is fighting to be seen

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Jose Martinez has picked America's food for decades. With all that experience on different farms, he saw workers lacking labor protections. Now he works to give farmworkers more rights.

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Point 3 - Avoiding anti-discrimination laws

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Point 3 - Avoiding anti-discrimination laws

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"Employers and recruiters can also weed out workers who might dare to speak out against unlawful employment practices, assert their legal rights, or organize for better working conditions by joining or forming a union. They can do this by refusing to hire workers whom they think will be likely to complain, and retaliating against workers who do speak up or complain—for instance, by firing them and effectively forcing them to leave the country, or by threatening to blacklist them from being hired for future job opportunities" (Costa, 2021).

Employers have an incredible amount of power when it comes to hiring workers. Thus, they are able to circumvent anti-discrimination laws and choose workers who they believe will benefit them the most. Thus, they are able to hire workers they think are afraid to speak up in fear of deportation, once again pointing to the power employers have under the one-employer rule.

"Private lawsuits against employers who break the law are also an unrealistic avenue for enforcing rights, for two reasons: First, most temporary migrant workers are not eligible for federally funded legal services under U.S. law, and second, those who have been fired are unlikely to have a valid immigration status permitting them to stay in the United States long enough to pursue their claims in court" (Costa, 2021).

Again, we see that even though there are rules in place, employers still have power over worker rights and many temporary migrants are unable to feasibly voice their complaints and are likely to be fired if they do so.

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"Like unauthorized immigrants, temporary migrant workers have good reason to fear retaliation and deportation if they speak up about wage theft, workplace abuses, or other working conditions like substandard health and safety procedures on the job—not because they don’t have a valid immigration status, but because their visas are almost always tied to one employer that owns and controls their visa status. That visa status is what determines the worker’s right to remain in the country; if they lose their job, they lose their visa and become deportable. This arrangement results in a form of indentured servitude" (Costa, 2021).

As employers have so much control over temporary migrants, many are afraid to speak up about workplace abuses. Almost half of the work force is undocumented meaning that if found out, they are at risk of deportation. Thus, employer's hold absolute power over the visa status of their workers, letting them exploit them without repercussions.

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Intro --> Problem --> Solution --> Evaluation --> Counter/ Response --> Conclusion

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Point 1: Labor exploitation - unfair labor tactics

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Point 1: Labor exploitation - unfair labor tactics

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Unfair working conditions, including overtime:

"Martinez said that while working, he and his fellow farmworkers didn't get lunch or other breaks...'There were chemicals, rats. You had to eat and run among the cows. They said it was an eight-hour shift, but sometimes it was 12. And we were not paid overtime." (Andrea Hsu, Ximena Bustillo, 2023)

Afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs

"'It was really hard at first to convince the workers [to speak up],' Martinez said. 'First thing they said is 'they'll chase me out; I have bills to pay and a family.' Martinez, who has legal status, says workers who are undocumented are even more afraid to voice concerns. It is estimated that over half of all farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented and those on visas are tied to their employers for housing, transportation and documentation" (Andrea Hsu, Ximena Bustillo, 2023)

Among other fears overall workers are not being paid properly and are afraid to speak up in fear of deportation (once again all circling back to the one employer rule)

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General recap of how changing the one-employer rule helps workers regain their rights and prevents employers from exploiting their employees and a call for action towards the audience (one final assertion for why the rule must change)

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"Under the proposed regulations, employers who violate H-2B program requirements, including employers who fail to demonstrate an ability and intent to follow the program requirements, may be ineligible for the limited number of available visas. To improve program integrity and better protect vulnerable workers, the proposed rule would clarify prohibitions on employer-imposed fees... Further, DHS is proposing greater flexibility for H-2 workers by extending grace periods for seeking new employment, preparing for departure from the United States, or seeking a change of immigration status, which will provide increased clarity and worker flexibility, mobility, and protections" (Department of Homeland Security, 2023)

What this means in terms of improved labor conditions: Workers now have more flexibility when it comes to job searching meaning that they don't face immediate risk of deportation after being let go from a job.

Employer-imposed fees: The fees aren't specified by the Department of Homeland Security so it cannot be known whether these fees are scrupulous in the grand scheme of the farm and if they will really have any effect on the farm itself. I will delve into this aspect as part of my counter-argument as well.

An example of worker exploitation: "The California Labor Commissioner has levied $1.9 million in penalties and fines against a local farm labor contractor and two growers for wage theft affecting 356 workers who harvested persimmons and blueberries" (Business Journal Staff, 2023).

Employers have so much power over the wages of their employees that in the most extreme case they are able to grossly underpay workers and participate in theft

A $1.9 million fee is no means a small fine and is a hefty fine that points in the right direction of holding paying workers properly. This is hopefully a sign in the right direction that by remediating temporary visas, workers gain increased rights and employers are held accountable.

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Introduce temporary work visas: H-2A, H-2B for migrant based labor

What are they?

"'Legal' pathways for U.S. employers that wish to hire migrant workers or for migrants who want to work in the United States lawfully is via “nonimmigrant” visas that authorize temporary employment" (Costa).

Table sourced from Costa picture above.

How do they work?

"In the United States, employers almost exclusively control and drive the process, by deciding to recruit and hire employees through temporary work visa programs. Workers who participate in those programs are known as temporary migrant workers, or “guestworkers”—defined as persons employed away from their home countries in temporary labor migration programs" (Costa).

What are their general pitfalls?

Exploitation, unsafe working conditions, debt bondage, underpaid, unprotected (Costa)

Narrow down from the broad introduction to focus specifically on the problem of the one-employer rule policy

Delve into a general introduction on the effects of the one-employer rule including exploitation, fear of deportation, its perpetuation of structural violence, etc (Holmes term)

Argue that these points and relevant analysis point to a need of abolishing the one-employer rule

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Question: How does the one-employer rule under H-2A and H-2B visas perpetuate structural violence against migrant farm workers and how can the rule be amended to prevent such violence?

Thesis: The one-employer rule under H-2A and H-2B, temporary visas for migrant workers, allows structural violence against migrant farm workers to flourish by creating opportunity for employers to exploit their workers in an unequal employer-employee power dynamic. The one-employer rule should be modified to help workers regain their basic labor rights by giving them a safeguard against possibly abusive employers and allow them a longer time period to search for a new job without the risk of deportation.