Each spring, a thousand or more Mexican tomato pickers descend on the Eastern Shore of Virginia to toil in the fields of Lipman Family Farms, enduring long hours stooped over to pluck the plump fruit. An adept worker will fill a 32-pound bucket every two and a half minutes, earning 65 cents for each one.
This year, there is a new and even more difficult working condition: To keep the coronavirus from spreading and jeopardizing the harvest, Lipman has put its crews on lockdown. With few exceptions, they have been ordered to remain either in camps where they are housed, or the fields, where they toil.
The restrictions have allowed Lipman’s tomato operation to run smoothly, with only a handful of coronavirus cases, at a time when many farms and food processing facilities across the country have wrestled to contain outbreaks. But they have caused some workers to complain that their work site has become like a prison.
Gone are the weekly outings to Walmart to stock up on provisions; to El Ranchito, the Mexican convenience store, to buy shell-shaped concha pastries; and to the laundromat to wash heavily soiled garments.
“You put up with a lot already. I never expected to lose my freedom,” said Martinez, 39, who is in his third year working in the tomato fields along the East Coast. (Many workers interviewed for this article asked to use only a first or last name for fear of losing their jobs.) He said workers spent months on end without interacting with anyone at all outside the farms, though Lipman eventually relented and organized a carefully controlled trip for groceries each week.
Lipman’s battle with its workers underscores one of the signature conundrums of the pandemic. Locking down its employees — a drastic measure that would be intolerable to most American workers — appears to have kept both the employees and the community safe. But at what cost?
The large tomato enterprise has been able to impose the restrictions on its workers because they are beholden to the company for their visa, housing and wages.
Lipman would not disclose total coronavirus case numbers, but employees said they knew of no cases at the Virginia operation following about six infections that occurred before most of the seasonal workers arrived. Kent Shoemaker, Lipman’s chief executive, said the company was proud of its record protecting both its employees and the surrounding communities.
“As of today, we do not have any confirmed Covid-19 cases on our farms or in our packing facilities,” Mr. Shoemaker said in mid-October.
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