Pickers

Pickers, also known as farmworkers, are the people in the FAYZ who grow and pick crops (mainly artichokes and cabbages, but occasionally melons) in the agricultural areas. The pickers are part of AlberCo and work for Albert.

History
In Hunger, Edilio Escobar takes a group of kids to pick crops, due to the ever-decreasing amount of available food, but the picking is called off due to the zekes in the fields. Orc, being almost immune to the zekes, is sent to pick cabbages. Orc's immunity allows him to enter the fields and pick the crops without getting hurt. The work is, however, tiresome and slow and is put to a permanent halt when a worm digs into the remaining skin on Orc's cheek. Edilio takes another group of children to work in a different field, but discovers it is also infested with zekes, so he calls a halt to it immediately before the kids are attacked.

Later, Quinn's fishing team start fishing blue bats, which are used to feed the zekes. This solves the problem of the zekes and the group pickers is formed between Hunger and Lies. They sell their crops at the mall in a stand called Gifts of the Worm for Monopoly game tickets.

Several pickers go to Lake Tramonto in the Big Split, so Sam negotiates control of some fields. In Light, Gaia is spotted by some Pickers, and has to kill them so nobody knows her location.

Work
Pickers spend six hours a day in the fields, and get paid ten 'Bertos a week. Most of them walk to and from the fields, but some drive to the fields further away. Blue bats are used to keep the zekes away. They take a wagon with them, and wear a glove on one hand and hold a knife in the other. They cut off crops that are big enough (for example, "up-chokes", artichokes higher up, must be five inches across and "ankle-chokes" must be three inches across) to ensure that the entire crop is not picked at once, and put them into a backpack. When the backpack is full, usually after two rows, they empty it into the wagon. The picker on duty ticks the load off on their clipboard. They eat lunch in the fields and when the wagon is full, the pickers head back.

They also plant and grow crops, but not much is known about this.