Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

Post by doliveira » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

agjmills wrote: post #14

londons_explore wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strawberry pickers typically work very close to one another with hundreds in the same area of a field at once, with lots of trucks as central points to put the fruit, etc. Workers also typically live on caravans near/on the fields in very cramped quarters to save commute time/cost. That could easily be changed to a more distributed method with per-worker wheelbarrows or backpacks, but presumably that would decrease t…

Personally, and I'd hope this is echoed by everyone: I'd rather have less strawberries, that are more expensive, than have strawberries picked by someone who died as a result of contracting COVID-19 in a field whilst they were picking strawberries to earn money to feed themselves/their family.

Post by mythrwy » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 5:13 PM UTC

Post by ericsoderstrom » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

kitotik wrote: post #12

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

You don't catch anything from a strawberry. This job is fundamentally no different from others, and way safer than for instance fast-food-window worker.

This is one of the more dismissive and ignorant comments I’ve ever seen in HN. Do you have some subject matter expertise or was this just intuition?

Post by tw04 » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #3

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

You don't catch anything from a strawberry. This job is fundamentally no different from others, and way safer than for instance fast-food-window worker.

These farm workers live in bunk houses basically and are trucked in on school buses. Most of them are migrant laborers or undocumented immigrants. Those conditions are not safe.

Post by majormajor » Wed, Apr 01, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

agjmills wrote: post #14

londons_explore wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strawberry pickers typically work very close to one another with hundreds in the same area of a field at once, with lots of trucks as central points to put the fruit, etc. Workers also typically live on caravans near/on the fields in very cramped quarters to save commute time/cost. That could easily be changed to a more distributed method with per-worker wheelbarrows or backpacks, but presumably that would decrease t…

Personally, and I'd hope this is echoed by everyone: I'd rather have less strawberries, that are more expensive, than have strawberries picked by someone who died as a result of contracting COVID-19 in a field whilst they were picking strawberries to earn money to feed themselves/their family.