Former Farmland workers find it hard to leave
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Many left the town after the fire, but for some Latino workers, who had moved here for Farmland jobs, Albert Lea is their final destination. They miss their jobs at the plant, hoping to get them back.
&uot;I like the life here,&uot; Hugo Carias, 48, from Jalapa, Guatemala, said in the small mobile home he bought for $2,000 a week ago. &uot;It is more tranquil and easier to live.&uot;
Running away from a long-lasting brutal civil war that accumulated a death toll of 200,000, Carias arrived in the U.S. in 1990. Since then, he has drifted from the San Francisco Bay area to Alaska, looking for a peaceful life and a better job.
Carias thought he had finally found the place when he got a job at the boning line at Farmland in 1999. &uot;Farmland was a good company,&uot; he said. &uot;The pay was good and the people were nice. It was like a family.&uot;
Despite being jobless for a year, Carias does not think he will leave Albert Lea. While getting by with a part-time job in electric maintenance and doing occasional border trades in Texas, Carias is studying computers at the Minnesota Workforce Center in Albert Lea.
His new life at the south end of city is far from the standard Carias used to have when he was working at the plant. His trailer hosue has no telephone, no air-conditioning and leaking water pipes.
But Carias is appreciative of the support he has been receiving from the community and friends, which makes him consider Albert Lea a permanent home.
55 percent of the 500 workers at Farmland were of Latino origin, according to Raul Herrera, a career counselor at the Workforce Center. Many of them had moved to Albert Lea after Farmland took over the plant in 1996.
The fire drove many of them out of the town, but about 50 are still looking for jobs in Albert Lea, according to Herrera. &uot;They are used to being mobile for an opportunity,&uot; he said. &uot;But many of those who left keep calling me to ask if Farmland is reopening.&uot;
Elizabeth Murillo, 27, from Brownsville, Texas, also misses her job at the plant.
She was an interpreter the plant hired to ease the communication among employees. Murillo agrees that the integration between non-English speaking workers and others was very smooth at the plant, unlike many other workplaces she saw in down south.
&uot;The workers were so loyal,&uot; Murillo said. &uot;I was amazed to see a lot of my colleagues show up to work the following morning after the fire.&uot;
Her husband was also a Farmland employee, so the fire took the entire family’s income source away. The couple took a course for nursing assistants at Riverland Community College. Though she is now looking for a job in a nursing home or hospital, Murillo said she still wants the plant back.