THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

They come to a store near you at low prices thanks to the miracle of underpaying Mexican laborers for their work. But those same Mexican workers are now saying, No Mas!

Since March, thousands of day laborers have blocked roads, staged marches and held meetings with lawmakers to protest the grind of picking strawberries, raspberries and blackberries in the Baja California peninsula for what they say is as little as $1 an hour.

Perfecto is part of a growing underclass whose frustration over pay and conditions is pressuring companies that supply U.S. markets to make improvements.

At least one company told Reuters it would reexamine its suppliers' treatment of workers.

Kevin Murphy, CEO of U.S. fruit company Driscoll's, said his company was reevaluating standards in the wake of the fruit picker protests, and was going to audit living conditions.

"We're going to go back and look at them again and reevaluate them and put in some improvements," Murphy said...

"If you're ill, or cut yourself in the fields, they don't pay the day (if you are out for treatment)," he said, flanked by plastic bags dangling from the low roof that serve as storage for their belongings, a few threadbare clothes and blankets.

"You keep quiet, and keep working covered in blood," added Perfecto, a 38-year-old whose main diet consists of refried beans or flour tortillas sprinkled with salt.

In the last few months, laborers have expressed increasing anger over conditions that even some conservative Mexican media have characterized as "near slavery"...

The boom in sales, meanwhile, has enabled fruit companies to pay above the minimum wage, which in Mexico is 70.1 pesos ($4.57) a day.

On average, Perfecto picks around 110 kg (243 lbs) of strawberries a day, and up to 200 kg (440 lbs) in high season, he said. Across the border in the United States, a kilo of strawberries fetched $5.19 on average in 2013, according to U.S. government data.

But Perfecto said he earns between 850 and 1,200 pesos ($56-$79) in a week that regularly exceeds 50 hours, roughly between $1 and $2 an hour.

Five of some three dozen workers interviewed by Reuters showed payslips reflecting earnings of between 782 pesos ($51.10) and 1,210 pesos ($78.80) per week. The slips did not provide a clear breakdown of the hourly compensation.

When asked how much it paid per kilo, a representative for BerryMex, one of Driscoll's suppliers, stated only that workers had an "average earning opportunity" of $5 to $9 an hour with top workers making up to $10 per hour.

This, BerryMex added, resulted in average weekly earnings of 3,600-7,200 pesos ($238-$476) in a 48-hour week.

No doubt the difference is in the many deductions, like healthcare and retirement and such. Ya think!