A week-long strike by tens of thousands of farm workers in the Mexican border state of Baja California has severely interrupted production at the peak of the winter strawberry harvest, as workers attempt to draw attention to dismal pay and conditions in the region’s export-oriented farms.

The potency of the strike, which has included some violent protests and an aggressive police response, will be tested on Wednesday evening when negotiations resume between the movement’s leaders, growers’ representatives and the authorities after a recess was called on Friday.

Growers had asked for the recess in order to come up with a response to strikers’ demands, which include nearly tripling pay for picking strawberries, blackberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and other crops intended for the US market.

Workershave said they currently receive around 110 pesos ($7) for 10-hour working days with no overtime pay. They also claim that some companies dock their pay with deductions for transport and accommodation, as well as accusations that child labour and sexual harassment of female workers is widespread.

The strike has been led by a worker’s group known as The Alliance, which was formed 17 months ago. The Alliance has been organising among the communities of farm workers, most of whom are migrants from the southern states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puebla. Many are from indigenous communities, recruited by company contractors who travel to remote villages promising good jobs and conditions. The movement’s central demand is a daily rate of 300 pesos ($20) a day.

“The producers had a boot to our neck,” Fidel Sánchez, one of the movement’s leaders, told the TV network Televisa. “It is time to push that boot off and say that we exist.”

Initial protests included a blockade of the main highway running down the Baja California peninsula that was broken up by heavily armed police in armoured cars amid burning tyres and flying rocks. About 200 people were reportedly arrested in the operation – though most were later released. The National Human Rights Commission said this week that it would open an investigation into alleged police abuse, including brutality and arbitrary detentions.

The violence calmed after negotiations began last Thursday, though tensions remain high in the region with fears that the failure to reach an agreement in today’s meeting will spark renewed conflict.

Minutes before heading into Wednesday’s meeting a representative of the main growers’ organisation in the region told the Guardian that he was optimistic that an agreement could get workers back in the fields by tomorrow.

“We all want to solve this problem,” Marco Antonio Estudillo said, “but what the strikers are asking for is impossible due to market conditions.”

Estudillo said “serious and irreversible damage” had already been caused to the farms that send almost all their produce to the US, particularly California. He said the strawberry harvest has been particularly affected, with fruit left rotting in the fields.

The strikers have received more understanding from some growers. Small producer Carlos Hafen coaxed strikers back to work with a rate of 200 pesos a day.

“If I can pay this, the big farms can pay it, too, and more,” he told Televisa. The strike, focused in the San Quintín Valley about 200 miles from the border with California, broke out on 17 March.

The state government has warned that it will not tolerate any more road blockades, suggesting the strike is being organised by agitators, and stressing the economic harm it is doing.



During the weekend recess, the governor of Baja California, Francisco Vega, warned that “if the fields continue without a workforce, the harvest will be lost and that will effect everyone who depends on this part of the economy”.