Giving Compass' Take:

• Sam Bloch reports on the Wonderful Citrus farmworkers strike that took place in January of 2019. 

• How can funders help to ensure that farmworkers and consumers have their needs satisfied? 

• Find out how a farmworker movement changed the way your food gets made.

In California, 1,800 subcontracted orange pickers are back to work after Wonderful Citrus, one of the country’s largest fruit companies, agreed to restore the price it pays for bins of harvested mandarin oranges, The Los Angeles Times reports.

The decision comes after a four-day strike by the farmworkers, who were employed by a third-party labor contractor to pick in orchards owned by the Wonderful Company, a billion-dollar agricultural conglomerate known for its Pom brand pomegranate juice. (The company is also one of the state’s largest water users. It consumes more water than the entire city of Los Angeles to grow its crops.)

The Wonderful Company had cut bin rates by more than 10 percent, from $53 per bin down to $48, The Bakersfield Californian reported last week. At the time, a spokesman for Wonderful said the pay cut was due to a seasonal transition from filling bins of clementines to the larger mandarin oranges, both of which are marketed under the brand name Halos. Whether or not that’s a regular occurrence is unclear. Armando Elenes, secretary treasurer of the United Farm Workers, told The New Food Economy in an email that the striking workers allege they had been paid the higher rate since October, regardless of the variety.

The strike is noteworthy not just because it’s a victory for the Farm Workers, the legendary grape pickers union that backed the Wonderful pickers on strike, after a failed campaign on another orchard. It also reveals hidden truths about the complex system by which farmworkers are paid.

In California protections for farmworkers, who support a $50-billion industry, are among the country’s strongest. In 1976, the state ordered overtime pay for farmworkers after they had worked 10 hours in a single day or 60 hours in a week. Forty years later, the state became the first to require overtime after eight hours on the job—the standard for workers in other industries. The law went into effect this month, and will be fully phased in by 2022.

Read the full article about California’s farmworkers strike by Sam Bloch at The New Food Economy.