Where do the farmworkers live?
Most farmworkers live in trailers – sometimes with as many as 12 men to a trailer. The going rental rate for a single wide trailer in Immokalee is roughly $200-$250 per week (about $1,000 per month). Since that is more than the average farmworker earns in total wages, the rent structure effectively builds overcrowding in as workers are obliged to move in as many people to the trailer as is necessary to pay the rent. Other farm workers live in labor camps, often located in or around the fields where they work, on their employer’s property. The labor camps are in remote areas and are generally guarded. Until June of 2002, one of Taco Bell’s principal suppliers did not permit their workers to receive visitors on their labor camp at any time. A judge issued an injunction requiring the company to allow their workers to receive visitors after workers complained through the CIW.
