This was the shortest section of the book. I found it to be quite boring and it felt like Schlosser did as well. He makes the case for the workers in the California strawberry picking industry. Their work is extremely difficult and does not provide any real benefits, stability, or good pay. The only reason the industry isn't updated is because it is cheaper for the employers to trap non citizens who in some cases can't even speak any english and have no other choice but to take what is available. It is unfair to take advantage of the situation that illegal immigrants are in. Schlosser mostly talks about how the big corporations abuse the small time workers and how the farmers are forced into tons and tons of debt because the market is so unsteady for fruit that can go bad within a week of being picked.
From the description of how difficult it is to grow strawberries and the amount of risk there is in that industry I think that maybe the strawberry industry in California should just give up. It's obviously not working for anyone other than the big wigs so if the people actually doing the work just up and quit, strike, then the larger corps would have nothing to profit off of. Maybe that's naive, but doesn't it make sense that if there's no production then there is not profit?
Again, this section was really short and didn't talk about much other than the fact that people coming in from this country, specifically from Mexico, are being taken advantage of because they are desperate for work. There even was an instance of one man 'rising' in the ranks and becoming a sharecropper for the big fruit industry who loaned him money to start a farm, had him sign a contract that he couldn't even read (he didn't know how to read English) and then he was put in a high position of crippling debt. He was unable to pay his workers, unable to harvest strawberries because of the crap weather, and left attacked by the companies that exploited him. This was an outrage. Just because he is not a citizen doesn't mean he should be treated anything less than one. We're all humans here, but the corps just want money.
Naturally greed is the root of all the issues in this short section. It's disgusting. No human being should be subjected to grueling physical labor day after day only to go home.....oh wait most of them were so impoverished because they weren't paid properly that they were homeless! So basically the point is that not only do we need working regulation and protection for legals and illegals, but we need to take care of any person in and out of this country.
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