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Group advocates for immigrant farm workers
By Justin Wier
YOUNGSTOWN
When Jeff Stewart set out to track the number of unauthorized immigrants in Ohio, he had to figure out how to find them.
“Where do you go when you want to find people who don’t want to be found?” Stewart asked. “Walmart.”
Stewart and other researchers started by looking at the shelves and checking which brand of tortillas the local Walmart carried. If the store carried Mexican brands, they would hang out and gossip with people who came to purchase them. Eventually they were connected with other immigrants in the region.
Before Stewart’s study, the best estimates of the rural immigrant and farm-worker population in Ohio ranged from 15,000 to 18,000. Stewart’s group found there were actually 63,500 to 70,300 rural immigrants and farm workers.
“There was a clear disparity between what people thought they knew, and what was actually going on in the state,” Stewart said.
That led to the creation of the Immigrant Worker Project in 1998.
Stewart, coordinator of the IWP, was at Youngstown State University on Monday to talk about how the Canton-based nonprofit helps meet the needs of immigrant communities in Ohio, especially when it comes to workplace rights.
Stewart said the majority of immigrants in Ohio are coming from Mexico and Guatemala, and they’re coming to work on farms. Between 1997 and 2004, production on poultry and dairy farms more than doubled. Farms producing eggs and nurseries cultivating plants for landscaping also have seen an increase in output tied to immigrant workers, Stewart said.
These workers often are vulnerable.
Stewart told a story about a man who cut himself in a poultry factory. He was taken to a vet to get stitches and then returned to work. On another farm, chicken catchers saw their wages reduced when a worker injured himself. The employer said it was to cover the workers’ compensation payments.
The Immigrant Worker Project helps these groups advocate for themselves and obtain better treatment in the workplace. They also provide education and help communities develop their own leadership.
“We’re building from the base and empowering the base, so they can lead themselves,” he said.
When asked about whether he should tell people to return to their countries of citizenship, Stewart said that would have little effect. Businesses want the low-wage workers, and immigrants are often fleeing terrible conditions including the civil war in Guatemala.
“Think about a 30-year civil war in Ohio and 500,000 die – civilians, not combatants. That’s what they’re coming from,” Stewart said.
Stewart said beginning in 2009, they started seeing unaccompanied minors coming in who were fleeing violence in their home countries.
Georgia Kasamias, a YSU student who interns at the IWP, organized the event. She said most people in the Youngstown area don’t know the organization exists, and it’s a nonprofit that lacks funding.
“I wanted to help market what they do and spread information,” she said.
Stewart said the closest community the group works in is Salem.
He acknowledged unauthorized immigration is a difficult issue, but he also said the current immigration system is broken. Also, America has some of the cheapest food prices in the world, in part because it relies on immigrant workers.
Stewart asked if Americans aren’t willing to have immigrants come do this work, are they willing to see farming outsourced to Mexico or are they willing to pay more for food?
It’s a decision most people don’t want to make, he said.