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<br />SignOJlSanDiego.com > News> Special Reports -- Farm workers fear water sale could cost jobs <br /> <br />.. <br /> <br />Page 2 of2 <br /> <br />conservation systems were installed. <br />Some farmers also say high-profit . Smaller runoffs could salt <br />crops, which require more labor, will the Salton Sea even more <br />continue to be planted. <br /> <br />Baragas regularly leaves his wife and three children in Mexicali, <br />following the crops from Imperial to Yuma to Salinas. Sometimes he's <br />gone for weeks, sometimes for just a few days. The routine is the same <br />for Paez, who is single but has a steady relationship. <br /> <br />"We go where the work is," Paez says, shrugging. <br /> <br />They choose to stay in a Calexico shelter, Baragas says, because "we can <br />get to work so much faster." <br /> <br />Baragas endures this existence for his family. "They depend on me," he <br />says proudly. <br /> <br />Does he want to see his daughter and two sons in the fields? "No, no, <br />no," he fires back. "I work in the fields so they don't have to." <br /> <br />If they're lucky, Baragas and Paez will find five hours of work a day <br />during the off-season, and as many as 12 hours during peak harvest. <br />They stoop, pick and carry crops for minimum wage. No health <br />insurance, no 401(k). <br /> <br />They take any work offered. Just the Sunday before, Baragas pruned <br />trees for 10 hours. His take was $50. <br /> <br />"I'm happy," he says, despite the less-than-minimum-wage payment. <br />"It's more money for my family." <br /> <br />But once the water leaves, so too will jobs, the men say. They are <br />skeptical of promises of job training and economic expansion. The San <br />Diego County Water Authority is expected to pay at least $50 million a <br />year for the water, a figure that could grow with inflation. Some of that <br />would be set aside to ease the economic pinch. <br /> <br />Nearly one in five people in the valley is unemployed already, without <br />the transfer. <br /> <br />"Where's the water needed more?" Baragas asks. Is it for crops that <br />feed the world or golf courses? For laborers who sleep in shelters or <br />commuters who live in tract homes? For mom-and-pop groceries or <br />mega-markets? <br /> <br />"The water," Baragas says, "should stay here." <br /> <br />Site Index I Contact SignOn I UTads.com I About SignOn I Advertise on SignOn I Make SignOn your homepage <br />About the Union-Tribune I Contact the Union-Tribune <br /> <br />@Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co, <br /> <br />http://www.signonsandiego.comlnews/reports/water/20021208-9999-workers.html <br /> <br />12/10/02 <br />