"They put food on our tables but live in the shadows. This man is fighting to be seen,"

Jose Martinez has lived and worked in the United States since he was 14 years old. Now 67, he drives around the Yakima Valley in Washington state checking on fellow workers...

Over the past decade, Martinez has been central to two flagship lawsuits creating policy changes in the state — making Washington one of the leaders in providing overtime to farmworkers and settling a civil rights case in favor of workers. And recently, he has taken his fight to Washington, D.C., where he has pushed for an expansion of legal status and protections for farmworkers.

Federally, farmworkers are largely excluded from many federal workplace safety regulations. They don't have a right to overtime pay or to unionize, and children as young as 12 can legally work in the fields. As a result, some states, like Washington, have extended additional rights and regulations...

"At that dairy is when I started to see workplace violations and abuses from the foremen to the workers," Martinez recalled. "And that's when I began to do something about the rights that we have as workers in the fields."

Martinez said that while working, he and his fellow farmworkers didn't get lunch or other breaks...

Just over a year after being at Ostrom, Martinez reached out to the United Farm Workers, an organization that he recalled from his years on farms in the San Joaquin Valley in California. He voiced concerns over poor treatment from supervisors and went public about COVID-19 outbreaks. During those conversations Martinez tipped off a lawsuit through the state attorney general's office over gender discrimination...

Martinez, who has legal status, says workers who are undocumented are even more afraid to voice concerns. It is estimated that over half of all farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented and those on visas are tied to their employers for housing, transportation and documentation...

[More coverage on alleged abuse at Ostrom can be read here.]