Guest commentary: What if that farm worker was your brother?

This summer was particularly difficult for them. Many northern crops had been destroyed by heavy rains, and steady work was rare. Your sister-in-law in Immokalee made it through the lean months by lining up with her kids at the local soup kitchen each day and hoping for financial help from several social service agencies each month.

Your brother has just gotten back into town. The kids are in school and day care, so he and your sister-in-law show up at the pickup point each morning at 6 trying to get chosen for one of the work crews. Your brother is able get a few days of work a week, but the season still hasn't kicked fully into gear. Your sister-in-law gets left behind with the other women and the older farm workers. They won't get selected until the season is in full swing. Your brother and his family are just getting by, always on the edge of despair.

Of course, that sensation is nothing new to them. Your brother pulls in about $8,000 each year. The rent on his trailer is $500 each month, so they share it with two other families, each occupying one room. The other families were strangers when they moved in, and your brother is worried about one of the husbands. The man drinks every night, and he seems to pay a little too much attention to your nieces. Your brother has considered moving, but he knows the situation could be far worse in another trailer. For now, he keeps his family together in their own room when they are home.

That ever-present sensation of living on the edge of despair was accentuated last winter when your brother broke his leg. For a month and a half, he couldn't work. There's no sick time or vacation pay for farm workers, so he just had to get through it.

Meals were reduced. Purchases were pared down to the bare essentials. The kids complained, but there was really nothing to be done. Eventually, he returned to work before his leg was fully healed, and it continues to bother him.

That's his life. You have your own life here in town. You had nothing to do with the reasons that he's a farm worker. You are not responsible. Still, he's your brother. He's just 45 minutes away. When you lie down in your bed at night, that short distance seems even shorter. Can you ever really rest, knowing how your brother and his family suffer?

The Catholic Bishops of Florida have designated Nov. 9 (today) as Farm Worker Justice Sunday. Today also kicks off Farm Worker Week as proclaimed by Gov. Jeb Bush, but to my mind the bishops' inclusion of "justice" in their designation is more fitting. Nearly every labor law reform of the last century seemed to leave the agriculture industry behind. As a result, farm workers in Florida are not eligible for sick pay, vacation pay or retirement benefits. They have no right to organize, belong to a union or bargain with employers.

Why is this accepted? Why are the conditions described above so typical among Florida's farm workers? At the most fundamental level, injustice can only take root when people are divided.

When one segment of the population considers another segment as "other," then the door is opened for rationalizing conditions that one would not accept for oneself. We have a harder time rationalizing injustices suffered within our own family.

Today, remember your brothers and sisters working in the fields around Immokalee. They are not "others." That which connects us to them -- our common humanity -- is far more profound than that which separates us. The next time your brother needs help, will he turn to a stranger or will he find you there?

San Carlos Park resident Brian Bennett is program director for Guadalupe Social Services in Immokalee, a program of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Venice.