UPDATE 4:27p.m.:

Driscoll's contacted Earth Eats with a statement. The following is an excerpt:

With regards to the issue in the Pacific Northwest, Sakuma Brothers is an independent grower for Driscoll's in Washington who is in compliance with the standards set forth in Driscoll's Global Worker Welfare Standards, our legal contracts and the state of Washington. Sakuma's compliance with our Global Worker Welfare Standards has been certified through three separate audits over several growing seasons.

Read the statement in its entirety here.

ORIGINAL STORY:

To many, summer means berries. Strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries; fresh, in salads, and in pies.

It takes a lot of berries to fulfill all those needs, and a lot of workers to pick all those berries.

And unfortunately, not all of those workers feel they are treated fairly by their employers - in particular, those who work for Driscoll's, the world's largest distributor of berries.

A years-long battle came to a head in July in Washington state, where berry farmworkers and their families marched to commemorate the third anniversary of their dispute with Sakuma Bros. Farms & Markets, which supplies berries to Driscoll's.

The Sakuma Bros. farmworkers are affiliated with Familia Unidas por la Justica (FUJ), an independent community organizing group of 300 indigenous migrant farmworkers and their families. In addition to last week's strike, they have organized protests, legal actions, and boycotts of Sakuma Bros. and Driscoll's, supported by organizations like Slow Food USA.

Their website claims "systemic wage theft, poverty wages, hostile working conditions, and unattainable production standards."

According to the FUJ website, the Sakuma Bros. conflict began in 2013 when a worker named Frederico Lopez was fired for asking for a higher wage.

But another account says it began with Sakuma Bros. began hiring temporary workers from Mexico as part of the H-2A Guestworker program, which mandates workers get hourly wages and certain types of housing – benefits not offered to seasonal laborers who had been there for decades (workers are typically paid by the weight of their harvest, rather than by the hour).

Since then, Sakuma Bros. has suspended the H2-A Guestworker program, but long-term seasonal laborers continued to demand better treatment and pay.

And some of their demands were heard. In 2015, the Washington Supreme Court ruled in a lawsuit that workers at Sakuma are entitled to paid rest breaks. In addition, the worker's group says there have been some improvements to housing conditions and wages, and the union won an $850,000 settlement in 2014 over improper logging of hours and rest breaks.

Still, some farmworkers say it's not enough. FUJ members are lobbying for Sakuma to change worker pay to a flat $15/hour, rather than by weight of harvest.

Kevin Murphy, Global CEO of Driscoll's, says that their company supports the workers' right to unionize, and has been working with Sakuma Brothers on improving conditions for farmworkers since 2013.

"They've done a lot of work in the years to make the adjustments necessary," he says. "We don't like that we're getting boycotted, but that's not the point. We want them to resolve the issue."

Read More:

• The workers who pick your summer berries are asking you not to buy them (PRI)
• Good Crop, Bad Crop (Slate)
• Are Your Summer Berries Being Picked By Abused Farmworkers? (Alternet)