On the Front Lines of Food Safety
MOSS LANDING, Calif. — With piles of fresh strawberries beckoning consumers at markets and stores this season, an alliance of a major retailer, fruit growers and farm workers has begun a program to promote healthy produce and improve working conditions.
The initiative, unfolding along neatly planted rows of berries at the Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce’s Sierra Farm here, is an effort to prevent the types of bacterial outbreaks of salmonella, listeria or E.coli that have sickened consumers who ate contaminated cantaloupes, spinach or other produce.
One of the workers, Valentin Esteban, is on the front lines of the new effort, having gone through a training program that helps him avoid practices that lead to possible bacterial contamination that could undermine the safety and quality of the strawberries he picks.
In exchange, Andrew & Williamson is providing Mr. Esteban better pay and working conditions than many migrant farmworkers receive, a base pay of $9.05 an hour versus the $8 average in the area.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/business/a-program-to-combat-food-contamination.html?ref=stevengreenhouse&_r=0
= new reply since forum marked as read
but I will mention that the "pickers" who have hispanic surnames and who are payed a bonus for staying on the job for a whole season (in short either illegal immigrants or "guest workers"
are now earning a higher base pay than 1/5 of Walmart workers:http://www.ilsr.org/walmart-could-easily-pay-12-hour/
With guest workers now taking nipping at BOTH ends (H1B) of the middle class scale and with supporters both within and without the halls of power (see: John McCain and jobs Americans won't do and statements from every silicon valley CEO) how much longer do they plan on continuing without some form of backlash from the citizens they are squeezing out?
