A Wolcott family farm employs dozens of seasonal migrant workers
| By Julia Rock |
| Earlier this month, about a dozen workers arrived in Wolcott, a small town halfway between Rochester and Syracuse, to grow apple trees. At this time of year, farmworkers are grafting and budding — farmer-speak for fusing trees together — and planting long rows of seedlings. They traveled to Wafler Farms, an apple orchard and fruit tree nursery, from Jamaica. Some have been making the journey for many years, living on the farm for up to three seasons and earning money to support their wives and send their children to school back home. It’s a precarious arrangement: They can only return to the farm, and therefore to the US, if their boss brings them back. “Sometimes you have to see something being done wrong and shut your mouth — you can’t say nothing. Because if you say something, you just might not come back next year,” said Christopher, a seasonal worker who has been returning to the farm for a decade. (Four Wafler Farms workers spoke with New York Focus and asked to have their names changed to protect them from retaliation.) Things were supposed to be different this year. A long-awaited union contract took effect in April, granting workers benefits including higher pay and the right to return each year if there is work for them. So far, the contract is not being followed, according to the farmworkers. Wafler Farms never agreed to the contract. The family-run farm refused to bargain with the union, which was formed in 2022 by a majority of the approximately 90 people working there during the peak of the harvest, and is affiliated with the United Farm Workers of America, a national labor union. So negotiations were moved to an independent arbitration process, as stipulated by state law. Wafler declined to participate in that process, as well, and a contract was finalized without the employer’s input. It’s among the first few union contracts that farmworkers have won in New York since 2019, when the state legislature granted them collective bargaining rights as part of a package of landmark protections for agricultural workers. They are excluded from unionizing under federal law — a legacy of New Deal-era racial politics. The fruit farm is now a testing ground for what workers can achieve under New York’s law, and how far the state will go to help them. |
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