Migrant Tobacco Laborer Wants Better Working Conditions

Source from:  October 29, 2007 Andy Matthews WINSTON-SALEM 10/30/2007

Victoriano Ponciano-Carrillo isn't a labor organizer. He's a quiet, relatively shy man who stood in a shaded area of Lloyd Presbyterian Church on Chestnut Street as speakers from Sunday afternoon's farmer worker's rally shouted for solidarity. Ponciano-Carrillo, 45, works on a tobacco farm near Pinnacle. He's been there for about five years under the H2A program that allows "guest workers" to perform seasonal farm work under a temporary visa designed for agricultural workers in the United States. Ponciano-Carillo is one of more than 3,000 farm workers in Surry County where tobacco is still the largest cash crop. He began working in tobacco when he was 20-years-old in his native Mexico where he will return shortly now that the tobacco harvesting season has ended here. Ponciano-Carrillo said that he had the same dream as all immigrants who come to America - to provide for a better way of life for his family who remain in Mexico. During his stay here, he averages about $480 a week in wages. And even though he admits that he makes only a fraction of that amount back in Mexico, Ponciano-Carillo says that he attended Sunday's march because he wants better working conditions in the tobacco fields for himself and other migrant laborers. "It's important to have unity in the fields," Ponciano-Carillo said, speaking through an interpreter. "We want the same rights as those who work in the factories." Like many tobacco migrant workers, Ponciano-Carrillo sometimes suffers from what is known as green tobacco sickness (GTS). According to the Center for Disease Control, GTS is an illness that results from exposure to dissolved nicotine from wet tobacco leaves. Thousands of tobacco workers fall victim to the illness each year. The symptoms include nausea, weakness, abdominal cramps, and changes in blood pressure and heart rates. While there are no precise figures on the number of people suffering from GTS, one study conducted on migrant workers in North Carolina suggests that 41 percent of tobacco handlers get the illness at least once during the harvest season. Migrant workers like Ponciano-Carillo are not protected under the 1983 Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, the main federal legislation regulating farmworker labor. They do not have the right to unionize and bargain collectively. In North Carolina, the number of H2A guest workers has expanded from just 168 in 1989 to 10,500 by 1998. Without those protections, many workers are afraid to get involved in a labor movement that might cost them their jobs. "Some people are scared," Ponciano-Carillo said, noting that four other workers had planned to attend Sunday's march with him. "They were ready to come and then they thought maybe they shouldn't. Enditem