Monday marks the observance of Cesar Chavez Day, and local advocates are marking the day by fighting for farm worker rights.
Cesar Chavez is one of the most influential labor leaders of the 20th Century, advocating for better agricultural worker conditions, and on Monday, that is just what organizations CAUSE and MICOP partnered together to accomplish.
At a press conference, leaders with these organizations presented a new study they claim provides evidence that growers can afford to pay farmworkers fairly and compensate them for the dangerous working conditions they say they face daily.
The report, called Harvesting Dignity, details how farmworker pay in Santa Barbara County comes short in comparison to other industries and does not equate to a liveable wage for the area.
The average local farmworker makes just less than $2 more than California's minimum wage at $17.42. According to the report, construction workers and truck drivers are industries with similar working conditions, and on average a construction worker makes about $25 an hour and a truck driver averages nearly $27 an hour.
About two dozen people attended the press conference Monday, with signs advocating for a fair wage for the work that they do.
"Here on our California coastal community of Santa Barbara County, where rising housing costs are squeezing them into an impossible situation that along with the the the health risks, the physical risks of the work," said CAUSE co-executive director, Hazel Davalos.
KSBY reach out to the San Luis Obispo County Farm Bureau and the Grower Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties for comment and no one was available for comment at the time of publication.
To view the full report, click here.
