The shepherd was deep in the desert, 13km from the nearest road and more than 7.5km of rocky brush past the closest sign of civilization, a landfill. It was midafternoon, 43 degrees Celsius, and the 500 sheep he tends 24 hours a day, seven days a week were sleeping. But with nothing else to do, he was watching them anyway, pacing the parched earth with two panting border collies by his side.
Two years and eight months into a three-year contract as a shepherd under a federal guest worker program, the 40-year-old Peruvian said he was still waiting for a day off. He lives in a 2m by 4m trailer with no running water, no electricity, no phone, no toilet. "This is my bathroom," he says with a toothy smile, holding up a long-handled garden shovel.
The man, who asked that his name not be used for fear of angering his employer, is typical of shepherds in the US, approximately 800 of whom toil in California. Mostly from Peru and Chile, they live isolated, nomadic existences here, dependent upon their employers for food, mail and all contact with the outside world. Aside from tinny radios or tiny televisions that some keep in their trailers, they live much as shepherds have always lived, in the middle of nowhere with no human contact save for when their bosses come to move the trailer to a new grazing location or bring their weekly rations of food and water.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
In the universe of migrant farm labor, shepherds make up the tiniest sliver, and are so invisible that, with a few exceptions, they have had no advocates to call for reform.
As federal guest workers, they are brought here because their employers, the sheep ranchers, could find no Americans willing to be shepherds, even here in California's farm belt, where unemployment in some counties is more than 15 percent.
That may be not only because their living conditions make migrant farm workers seem pampered, but also because under a quirk in federal labor laws, shepherds are excluded from minimum wage regulations. Until July 1, when California's Industrial Welfare Commission, which regulates working conditions, ordered sheep ranchers to increase wages to herders by US$150 a month, shepherds, who are essentially on duty 90 hours a week, made US$900 a month.
Still, shepherds in California, the second-largest sheep ranching state, after Texas, are the lucky ones. They make the most money. In other states, the pay is anywhere from US$600 to US$800 a month.
Shepherds are also on the legislative map. When the state Industrial Welfare Commission refused to set working conditions for shepherd, such as overtime pay and rest periods, state Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, drafted a bill that would require rest periods and basic amenities, such as toilets, lighting, water and regular access to phones.
The bill, which has passed the Assembly and is expected to be reviewed by a state Senate committee on Wednesday would require shepherds to be given a 30-minute meal break in a five-hour work period if someone is available to relieve them. It would also require employers to provide housing that includes toilets, heating, lighting, water, stoves and refrigerators.
"It's logical that at some point their conditions would have to change from the days of the Old Testament," Koretz said. "I'm generally trying to bring them up to the 20th century."
But passage of Koretz's bill is in no way assured. Ranchers vehemently deny that shepherds are mistreated, and lobbyists for the sheep ranching industry say that new regulations would kill an ailing industry.
Over the last 20 years, sheep ranchers have seen their profits steadily erode. In 1999, California ranchers made US$0.35 a pound for wool, US$0.30 less than in 1994. Lamb meat wholesales for US$0.82 to US$0.83 a pound. In 1997, it was US$0.91.6.
With the erosion of profits, the herd in the state has steadily declined. From 1994 to 2001, according to the US Department of Agriculture, the number of sheep produced in California dropped by a third, to 840,000, and the number of farms with sheep has dropped by 45 percent.
Officials of the Western Range Association, a lobbying organization representing ranchers in 11 states, did not respond to calls seeking comment.
But in an article by The Fresno Bee, James Holt, an agricultural economist with the association, said the sheep ranchers had been trying to make it clear to legislators that the money to pay for any added benefits or amenities to herders is simply "not there."
"We've tried to be responsible and responsive" to shepherds, Holt said.
Assemblyman Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Temecula, who voted against the bill, said he thought it would do more harm than good. The shepherds, he said, do not really need rest periods. "Most of the time," he said, "they are resting, unless there is a danger. Most of the time, it's just watching the flock." He added that the impact of the bill "will not be better wages or working conditions for sheepherders. The impact will be that wool growers will leave this state and there will be less jobs for sheepherders to have in California."
Koretz said that he was trying to be sensitive to the industry, and that if necessary, he would moderate his bill so it could land on Governor Gray Davis' desk and be assured his signature.
But a small but persistent group of advocates for the shepherds say that modest goals for shepherds should not be compromised.
"We're not asking for Jacuzzis," said Chris Schneider, executive director of Central California Legal Services and a crusader for improved conditions for sheepherders for over a decade. "When an industry is going through a low period, we don't lower the minimum wage or say it could force their workers to work without getting paid."
Last year, the Fresno-based legal aid group published a report on the conditions of 41 shepherds in the lower Central Valley counties of Fresno and Kern, which contain most of the sheep ranches in the state, and found that 90 percent of the shepherds had never had a day off and more than 95 percent had no toilets. The report also said that many shepherds were not allowed visitors, and that they were threatened with deportation if they asked for such things as more food or clean water containers.
One former shepherd, Victor Flores, said he was dumped at a motel in Bakersfield when he asked his employer for more food. He said he was forced to take another job, as a dishwasher, and now, seven years later, works in a fruit packinghouse. He has formed an advocacy group, the Sheepherders Union, which documents the conditions and experiences of the shepherds.
"I never thought when I came here from Peru that this country would treat people as less than human," he said.
Ranchers say that the shepherds are paid much more than they would be making in their native countries, an argument that rankles those fighting for improved conditions. "When someone comes to this country, we don't take their native country into consideration in how we treat them or pay them," Schneider said.
There is no denying that the shepherds live primitively. Visits to shepherds in Fresno and Kern counties -- where finding just four herders took two days because of their remote locations -- found them in very old, dilapidated trailers, full of flies and mosquitoes. One shepherd had a plastic water barrel that was clearly full of fungi and smelled of rotted meat. One was spending a 113-degree afternoon in his 110-degree trailer, waiting for the sun to set so he could spend several hours putting up temporary fences to contain his sheep. All their dogs stayed in holes they had dug under the trailers to avoid the blistering heat.
The shepherd found in the Mojave Desert, the most remote location of any shepherd interviewed, will be moved in October during what is called the lambing season, to farmland outside of Bakersfield.
He said he looked forward to it, despite the backbreaking 13-hour days of caring for newborn lambs and their mothers, because then he has greater contact with the outside world. Two or three shepherds work together and occasionally go to stores to get supplies for the sheep.
"I get depressed here very often," he said.
But he also considers himself fortunate. Once a week, a kindly man he met when he was stationed near Bakersfield during the six-month lambing season brings him a newspaper. And his employer comes to check on him every other day. Many shepherds do not see their bosses for a week or two, when they bring supplies. A few weeks ago, his employer replaced the shabby 2m by 2.5m wooden trailer he was living in with a newer, 2m by 4m one that has seating besides a bed.
And while he has never seen a movie, eaten at a restaurant, attended a church service or even spent a free hour walking around the one city in the US he has glimpsed, Bakersfield, he said he would renew his contract and do the work for another three years.
"My sons are 11 and 12 and I want the best for them," he said. "That's what I keep remembering all the time while I'm here."
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