Farmworker

Job description

Crops/Commodities:
vegetables and cantaloupes.
Plant, cultivate and harvest vegetables/fruit. Work on planter, planting roots, seeds and bulbs. May spread plastic or other groundcovering and clean by hand plastic from ground upon removal. Cultivate, weed and thin plants. Transplant plants by hand. May stake/tie plants, trellis/prune plants, and set poles and wires for vine plants. Pick, cut, lift, or pull crops to harvest them. May tie vegetables/fruit in bunches or top them. Grade, size and package product. Apply pesticides, fertilizer and crop protectants. Place irrigation pipe and fittings. Considerable stooping and kneeling is required. Care must be taken to prevent damaging produce and plants. May assist with general maintenance of buildings and grounds.

Workers will be required to harvest crops by hand and work in the fields for long periods of time. Workers are expected to perform duties including boxing, weighing and loading of product. Workers will assist in loading trucks with product weighing up to and including 60 pounds and lifting to a height of 5 feet for long periods of time. Workers must be able to work on their feet in bent positions, and must be able to bend and stoop for long periods of time. Work requires repetitive movements and extensive walking. Allergies to ragweed, goldenrod, insect spray, related chemicals, etc. may affect workers’ ability to perform the job. Workers are exposed to wet weather early in the morning through the heat of the day, working in fields. Temperatures may range from 10 to 105 F. Workers may be required to work during occasional showers not severe enough to stop field operations. Workers must work at a sustained, vigorous pace and make bona fide efforts to work efficiently and consistently that are reasonable under the climatic and other working conditions, considering also the amount, quality and efficiency of work accomplished by their coworkers. Workers should be physically able to do the work required with or without reasonable accommodations. To be qualified for this position, a worker must be willing to perform the considerable manual labor required on such a farm. Saturday work required. Must be able to lift/carry 60 lbs.

Packing House: Workers may work in the packing house packing vegetables/fruit.

In addition, workers may be required to perform variable tasks such as the following: ditching, shoveling, hoeing, hauling, ground preparation, and other tasks related to general farming.

Work may also include mechanized field work using power equipment. By way of example and not limitation power equipment may include tractors, planters, sprayers and cultivators and other equipment. Workers will be expected to be able to operate agricultural equipment with or without direction.

While the employer does not require prospective applicants to take and pass a drug test prior to a hiring decision, the employer has a no-exceptions drug policy requiring newly-hired employees to take and pass an employer-paid drug test. Every new hire must undergo testing before start working with the company. All testing is conducted uniformly after an initial job offer has been extended and accepted by the new hire. If an employee tests positive, he/she is immediately terminated and paid for all hours worked between the first date of employment and the date of termination, if any. In the case of a non-local or foreign worker who is terminated for cause resulting from failure to pass a drug test, the employer will arrange least-cost transportation to the worker's place of recruitment, at the worker's expense. The employer will also test upon reasonable suspicion of use and at random.

The employer requires that all newly hired employees take and pass an employer-paid background check. All background checks are conducted uniformly after an initial job offer has been extended and accepted by the new hire.

Special Requirements

This job requires a minimum of three months of verifiable prior experience working on a diversified crop farm handling both manual and machine tasks associated with commodity production and harvest activities. Workers must be able to perform all duties of entry level workers as well as perform additional mechanized activities with accuracy and efficiency. This is hard, strenuous labor, under cold, wet conditions in the spring, and extreme heat and humidity in the summer. Saturday work required. Must be able to lift/carry 60 lbs. Employer-paid post-hire drug testing required. Employer-paid post-hire background check required for new hires.