Strawberry season is just beginning in Washington. But the disagreements over wages between berry pickers and Sakuma Brothers Farms go back several years. On Thursday, tensions boiled over again when some workers walked off the fields.
More than a hundred berry pickers stopped work because they say their wages are too low. They want a 10 cent increase for every pound they pick, which they say will guarantee them $12 an hour. But a spokesman for Sakuma Brothers Farms in Burlington – Roger Van Oosten says the wage is fair.
“Economically, we pay the highest rate we can, and still return enough of a profit to hire everybody,” he said.
Workers have wanted to negotiate a union contract with Sakuma Brothers since 2013. Their long term goal is to be guaranteed $15 an hour.
Ramon Torres is the president of the workers group, Familias Unidas, which has called for a boycott of Sakuma and Driscoll, a customer of Sakuma.
"The boycott is affecting them a lot, enough that there's going to be a day where we have the possibility of signing a contract,” he said.
The spokesman for the farm acknowledged that some pickers didn’t work, but he says many others continued to harvest berries.
