The company website says the company has been in the cannabis and hemp business for decades, but according to many farmworkers who used to work there, Castillo Seed said business had declined badly during the pandemic and told them they wouldn’t be paid the last weeks of December into the New Year. But that stretched into eight weeks of work with no pay.
Some went to Coastside Hope, an agency that acts as a safety net for those in need.
“A lot of them continued to go to work I believe because they had hope that, maybe, the next day they would get paid, and if not that day the next day,” said Coastside Hope Executive Director Judith Guerrero. “I think also the fear of leaving work and if you left work they wouldn’t pay you.”