Field Workers

Job description

Job duties - description of the specific services or labor to be performed:

Employee picks strawberries in varying weather conditions, while adhering to quality and standards determined by company, using physical body motions, including picking fruit, pushing carts and carrying cardboard crates (organic or conventional) weighing up to 10-13 lbs. And plastic crates (freezer and juice) weighing up to 22 lbs when full.

Employees will be required to harvest strawberries using the harvest aid. The employee harvests by walking behind the harvest aid as the harvest aid moves across the row from one end to the other. When the employee completes a crate, he/she places the full crate on a platform on the harvest aid and begins a new one.

Employees will be required to perform the responsibilities of Strawberry Ground crew. The employee will harvest by walking in the furrow from the middle of the block towards the road where the harvest trailer is located. Once the worker completes the full box of strawberries, he/she will walk to the harvest trailer to place the harvested box on the table for quality inspection and will take an empty box to repeat the process.

When harvesting juice or freezer, the employee will be required to perform this manually or in the case of freezer, it may require the use of a blade to remove berry from the plant.

The aid harvest team is able to control the speed at which the harvest aid moves across the field. Employee will be responsible for ensuring the quality of the harvested strawberries meets quality and inspection requirements.

Employees will also be responsible for cleaning the field and discarding all fruit from the furrow that does not meet Driscoll’s quality requirements.

The employee will also be responsible for removing weeds by hand. The employer will provide training to perform weed-removal tasks. Employees who perform hand weeding and hand thinning will be provided gloves as necessary to carry out the work. Knee pads will not be provided, as kneeling is not necessary to perform weeding tasks. The weeds are not at ground level.

Special Requirements

Two months of experience in harvesting strawberries. Cannot be color blind due to the need to distinguish colors of crops for proper ripeness and maturity, no smoking, illegal drugs, alcohol, or weapons of any sort in the housing or work fields. Ability to communicate in English or Spanish is required for training and safety purposes. Work is performed outdoors in open fields and can involve exposure to sun, wind, mud, dust, heat, cold and other elements of the normal field environment. Temperatures can range from 50 degrees F to over 90 degrees F during the period of employment. Workers should come prepared with appropriate clothing and footwear for the work and working conditions described.

See addendum C