Flavio Duque, a long time Giumarra worker was literally forced to race against other workers in temperatures over 100 degrees to avoid being suspended.
"The foreman yelled at all of our crew and said that he had got a call from Salvador Giumarra saying that the worker with less boxes was going to get suspended….We were all running in and out of the rows looking for grape to pick because the rows did not have too much grape to pick. A lot of us were not even taking time to go drink water because all we could think of was to look for grape so that we wouldn’t get suspended."
Flavio went on to tell us at that the foreman followed up with his threat and the workers who picked the least amounts were sent home.
The abuse continued the next day when company President Sal Giumarra came to the fields himself and scared the workers some more by threatening to send the whole crew home for lack of production. Flavio said, "I was afraid to lose my job…We were all afraid because we are in need of our jobs."