Strawberry pickers strain to see fruits of their labor, even after strike

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/6/21/strawberry-pickers-strain-to-see-fruits-of-their-labor.html

‘My body is tired, but I do all I can,’ says farmworker who's picked produce in Mexico and the US for over four decades
June 21, 2015 5:00AM ET

by Josh Rushing @joshrushing

SAN QUINTÍN VALLEY, Mexico — In the fields of BerryMex, one of the largest berry growers in the San Quintín Valley of Mexico, laborers hunch over at the waist for hours. They shuffle through long rows of organic strawberry plants — long called the devil’s fruit by pickers — meticulously checking each one for ripe fruit. This backbreaking work earns them pennies — 12 cents to pick a 1-pound pack that retails for $4.99 at a Whole Foods near Washington, D.C.

Ernesto Morales (his name has been changed for his employment protection), 60, picks strawberries for BerryMex. A Mixtec from the southwestern state of Oaxaca, he’s among the 6 million Mexicans who speak indigenous languages. He never attended school, tending his family’s animals instead. At 15 or 16, he started picking tomatoes in the western state of Sinaloa. He didn’t speak Spanish until after he moved to Baja California in the early 1970s.

In March, Morales joined thousands of pickers in the largest strike of Mexican farmworkers in decades. At the peak of harvest, pickers walked out of the fields and blocked the highway north leaving fruit to rot on the vine. Police responded swiftly, breaking up the demonstrations with tear gas and batons. Dozens were arrested.

Though Morales and his wife participated in the demonstration, they avoided the crackdown.

FULL story at link.