is unpaid work still work?

I seem to be very good at creating unpaid work opportunities for myself. I started a CSA in Corwn Heights which has turned in to so much more work than I would have ever guessed and I am paid in vegetables! Our farmer just announced that he is raising the cost of a share next year by $20. This doesn't sound like a lot but he already has one of the highest rates of any farmer around. We are committed to attracting more economically diverse members and providing organic produce to everyone regardless of income. We also have to charge an admin fee to cover some of our expenses and I am worried that extra $20 is going to put people over the edge. When I asked him his reason for raising the rate he got very defensive and started talking about his labor costs:

"As a vegetable farm we are exempt from overtime wage regulations, but we, along with our staff, regularly put in more than 70 hours per week. In reality, all of my staff is really just happy to have the work and income. But, I give no other benefits than being an honest and worthy employer. They in return, have given us the best of their labor. While most are seasonal employees, the majority of them have returned year after year, something that I do wish to take for granted."

Now he is not saying that I am raising my price so that we can give out raises or pay overtime or benefits, he's just saying labor is pricey.

A friend of Mr. T's recently wrote a disturbing article about how farmworkers she's talked to prefer to work for big corporations than small family farms because the pay is better and they actually get benefits. I wanted to scream when I read her argument but here I am contributing to a farmer who is admitting to exploiting his workers and doesn't seem too upset about it.

Our farmers rates are so high already that we cannot afford to have a sliding scale program where higher income members pay a higher rate to subsidize lower income shares because our minimum payment is too high. Is there any way that we can use our consumer power to demand that he pay his workers more? Can we offer to pay even more for a share if it translates in to raises? But what about low-income members in our community? How can we support them and not exploit workers? It's really complicated! But has me thinking about whether I can somehow become a consultant that works with CSA's to help them have these challenging conversations with their farmers, and to make members aware of the fact that they are supporting a local business who may not be treating workers as well as we'd like to imagine they are.

What I have been thinking about more and more lately is how maybe I have been taking the wrong approach sitting passively by and sending out resumes to groups that are already stuck in the way they do things. I hate office politics and I hate sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day. I think I need to start my own thing whether a consultant or something else, but how do you really make something like that happen? Especially when my natural instinct is to do things for free. . .

In other news we caught a mouse this morning. I bought 4 different kinds of traps and poison and the snap trap is now my favorite!

I have also made an appointment to meet with home delivery midwifes. Though NY is a big city it's really not. All the midwifes know each other so I had to be careful about what I said about my current midwife. When I said that she is more medically minded than I am looking for, the response was "oh yes she's good but very medical, we have a very different approach." Hopefully they can convince Mr. T that a homebirth does not translate in to a death sentence!