are not the subject of a two- way conversation between wine industry executives and workers, says Max Bell Alper, executive director of North Bay Jobs with Justice, a Santa Rosa-based community and labor coalition that includes farmworkers. “We’re frustrated that wine grape growers, wineries and robotics manufacturers have not yet begun a conversation with vineyard workers about what these machines can do and how they will change the labor market. The topic is part of a bigger conversation about how the wine industry is treating the land and failing to consider the knowledge of immigrant and indigenous workers who have built the industry,” adds Alper. As North Bay wineries and vineyards adopt such machines, farmworkers
Workers affiliated with North Bay Jobs with Justice march in July in Healdsburg to demand disaster pay and dignified wages. [Photo by Brooke Anderson]
For example, at several wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties, workers have been able to include protections against wildfires into their union contracts, including hazard pay of 150% when the Air Quality Index is over 150. And across California, recent legislation the UFW marched for has made it easier than ever for farmworkers to join the union, free from employer
would prefer a “just transition” into careers in climate resilience, adds Alper, noting that many farmworkers have experience in wildfire-evacuation-route clearing, invasive-species removal, forest restoration after wildfires and creating defensible space around homes, among other resilience projects.
“We’re frustrated that [wine-industry leaders] have not yet begun a conversation with vineyard workers about what these machines can do and how they will change the labor market.”
— Max Bell Alper, executive director of North Bay Jobs with Justice,
retaliation. In the past year alone, thousands of new farmworkers have unionized in California.” says De Loera-Brust. He sees the primary issue as robots like Oxin being seen as a cost-saving measure. That could undermine farmworkers' bargaining power. “I worry that we have a society where most farmworkers are treated as disposable. Many of these individuals are working well into their 70s because they never got a pension. Instead of having a conversation about retirement and health-care benefits, we’re talking about robots. We don’t want this to be the wine industry’s get-out-of-jail-free card to lower costs by avoiding giving the human workers who make this industry possible their due,” says De Loera-Brust. g
“We’d like to see trainings [conducted] in people’s preferred languages. In Sonoma County, one in three farmworkers speaks an indigenous language, including Mixteco, Trique, Zapoteco and Chatino,” says Alper. Antonio De Loera-Brust, spokesperson for United Farm Workers (UFW), which represents thousands of farmworkers across California, says technologies like Oxin have the potential to make agriculture-worker jobs safer and more dignified, as well as reduce exposure to pesticides. Yet this is only true if workers have a say in their use. “Technology is neither good nor bad. It’s all about context, who wields power in any given workplace,” says De Loera-Brust. He says UFW wants to see workers at the table where discussions are being held. “Recently, farmworkers in the Napa area have won lots of victories when standing up for themselves.
Please email comments to jwalsh@NorthBaybiz.com
58 NorthBaybiz
September 2024
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