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Farm Workers

ICE Carries Out Second Raid On New York Farm As Workers Unionize

August 29, 2025 People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Agents with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out another raid at Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms in western New York on August 14, detaining seven farmworkers on their way to work. The raid came just months after another ICE raid, where 14 workers were detained. The United Farm Workers labor union has condemned the raid at the farm that the UFW has been actively organizing in since 2022. Of the 14 workers detained at the May 2 raid, ten were ultimately deported. UFW Secretary Treasurer Armando Elenes labels the raids as “shameful employer complicity in the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate legal protections and lower wages for farm workers.”

Farm Workers Union Holds Anti-Ice Protest

May 8, 2025 Keller O'Dekirk, Workers World. , , ,
Dozens of activists responded to a call by the United Farm Workers (UFW) for an emergency demonstration on May 2 at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Batavia, New York, near Buffalo. That morning ICE agents had stopped a bus carrying farmworkers to Lynne-Ette Farms in Kent, New York, and arrested several workers — targeting workers who had been engaged in union-building efforts through the UFW. The bus was owned and operated by Lynne-Ette Farms, and it is more than likely that the company used ICE as a means to intimidate its workers from unionizing.

ICE Can’t Erase What Lelo Juarez Built

April 27, 2025 David Bacon, Labor Notes. , , , ,
In 2022 I went to Washington State for May Day, and the following year as well. Just south of Canada, in Bellingham and Mount Vernon, Community2Community and Familias Unidas por la Justicia celebrate the workers holiday in the tradition followed by the rest of the world. They march. For me, a child of the Cold War, when May Day was the forbidden Communist holiday, it's a time to appreciate how the world has changed. Brightly-painted hand-made signs and banners call out—“Another World is Possible!" —a May Day sentiment if there ever was one. Some demonstrations can be formal exercises.

Trump’s Mass Deportation Operation Escalates With Workplace Raids

April 25, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
On Monday, April 21, US Customs and Border Protection raided Vermont’s largest dairy farm, detaining eight immigrant workers in the largest immigration raid in the state’s recent history. The next day, ten workers at a Home Depot in Pomona, California were arrested by immigration authorities. Workers across the country are bracing for the possibility that many of their coworkers may fall victim to sudden kidnappings by federal agents in the name of carrying out Trump’s agenda of mass deportations. In a country where undocumented workers perform many of the most essential functions in the nation’s economy, escalating immigration raids could have enormous ripple effects.

Farmworker Union To Hold New Election

September 19, 2024 By Dan DiMaggio and Sindhu Sundar, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Members of the second-largest farmworkers union in the U.S. will elect leaders on September 21 and 22. It’s a rerun of an election two years ago, following accusations that many members were effectively disenfranchised in that vote. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee agreed to the new election in a voluntary compliance agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) last year. The union has 1,500 members in North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio. Its primary collective bargaining agreement, with the North Carolina Growers Association, covers 9,000 farmworkers scattered across 750 North Carolina farms.

Rolling Back Protections For Child Labor In The Name Of ‘Parental Rights’

June 18, 2024 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , ,
One hundred years ago this month, I was reminded by Portside’s “This Week in People’s History” feature (5/29/23), a constitutional amendment passed both houses of Congress, with large majorities, and went to the states for ratification. It remains a proposal, not a law, to this day, because the necessary three-quarters of states didn’t accept it. The proposal is the Child Labor Amendment, giving Congress authority to regulate “labor of persons under 18 years of age.” Efforts to protect children from dangerous work continued anyway, of course, and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act included prohibitions on children under 14 working in most occupations. Separate rules have been crafted for agricultural jobs (which is its own story).

We Want A Labor Law That Protects All Farm Workers

June 8, 2024 Sarah Tucker, The Stand. , , ,
Seattle - Farm workers at Windmill Mushroom traveled to Seattle on Wednesday to shed light on their years-long struggle for dignity and respect – and to urge lawmakers to pass legislation to ensure farmworker labor rights. Accompanied by United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero and joined by state legislators, farm workers spoke passionately about their fight to unionize and the need for labor laws that protect all farm workers, organized or not. The workers have been organizing together for more than two years at Windmill Farms – formerly Ostrom – fighting back against intense pressure and retaliation from the boss.

It’s Too Hot To Keep Using Pesticides

August 19, 2023 Harrison Watson, In These Times. , , , ,
It’s summer and time to take in the sunshine. But beware: because of climate change, the planet is rapidly warming. Outdoor temperatures are climbing above 100oF. Raging heat waves are causing debilitating illness and death. In some places, floods sweep through the streets. In others, precipitation is declining and water sources are evaporating. The Union of Concerned Scientists has dubbed this time of year, from May to October, the ​“danger season.” Humans have not evolved to withstand such levels of heat stress. Still, over 2 million farm workers find themselves out in the fields. Some are suited up in heavy layers of clothing, including flannel shirts, pants, boots, gloves and coveralls.

Inside The Government’s Failing Program To Protect Farmworkers

April 23, 2023 Johnathan Hettinger and Sky Chadde, In These Times. , , ,
In early 2019 in Illinois, a farmworker, his wife and his son lived in a moldy house. Attempting to keep the winter cold at bay, he’d spray-foamed the windows shut. The toilet often malfunctioned. Unlike most farmworker housing, it hadn’t been inspected — the employer hadn’t registered it with the state. But the man had another option. He complained to a state employee whose job is to advocate for farmworkers’ rights. A crucial component of the advocate’s job is visiting fields and housing and forwarding complaints to law enforcement. Several farmworkers a week were contacted through this outreach. Between 2018 and 2020, Illinois forwarded 10 complaints — ranging from being sprayed twice by pesticides to illegally garnishing wages for medical treatment — to authorities.

Supreme Court limits California Union Recruiting In Favor Of Property Rights

June 25, 2021 Kate Cimini, Cal Matters. , , ,
In a blow to labor, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a decades-old California rule inspired by César Chávez that allowed union organizers to meet with farmworkers at their place of work. Commercial growers applauded the conservative court’s ruling to uphold property rights while union representatives vowed not to be deterred. Two agricultural producers filed suit after organizers with the United Farm Workers sought to access their property to speak with farmworkers. The plaintiffs in Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid, Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company, argued the California regulation requiring them to provide access up to three hours a day, 120 days a year was unconstitutional and unnecessary.

Days After Election, Trump Freezes Wages Of Farm Laborers

November 11, 2020 Jake Johnson, Commondreams. , , ,
Just days after U.S. voters went to the polls to help deny President Donald Trump another four years in the White House, the Trump administration issued a little-noticed rule freezing the wages of farm laborers working under H-2A visas, a move that could severely harm low-wage guest workers who have already been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. The rule (pdf), published in the Federal Register by the Department of Labor on November 5, will "help corporate interests deny pay hikes to frontline farmworkers who help maintain America's food supply," The Daily Poster's Julia Rock reported Monday.

Reckoning With Labor Law’s Racist Roots

August 22, 2020 By Marina Multhaup, On Labor. , , ,
The maintenance of the racist Southern plantation system was the driving force behind the “compromise” struck by President Roosevelt and the Southern Democrats to exclude agricultural laborers from labor protections. In congressional debates this was clearly articulated. Representative Wilcox of Florida extolled, “You cannot put the Negro and the white man on the same basis and get away with it…” and Representative Cox of Georgia agreed, saying that it would be “dangerous beyond conception” to eliminate racial and social distinctions. Bargaining away racial equality, President Roosevelt and his coalition excluded agriculture from the FLSA.  There have been legal challenges to the agricultural exemption in the past but the exclusion has never been attacked squarely as unconstitutional because it was racially motivated. The Martinez-Cuevas case will be the first to squarely present this question before a court.

Work In The Time Of COVID-19

August 5, 2020 Rebecca Gordon, Tom Dispatch. , , ,
In two weeks, my partner and I were supposed to leave San Francisco for Reno, Nevada, where we’d be spending the next three months focused on the 2020 presidential election. As we did in 2018, we’d be working with UNITE-HERE, the hospitality industry union, only this time on the campaign to drive Donald Trump from office. Now, however, we’re not so sure we ought to go. According to information prepared for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Nevada is among the states in the “red zone” when it comes to both confirmed cases of, and positive tests for, Covid-19. I’m 68.

As COVID-19 Surges, Farmworkers Are Paying A High Price

July 31, 2020 By Evelyn Nieves, Inside Climate News. , , ,
Every day, California farmworkers worry that the pandemic plowing through agricultural hubs will catch them and kill them. They also worry that not working will kill them. The collapse of food service demands when most businesses and institutions shut down has cut farm jobs statewide by 20 percent, or 100,000. Many farmworkers who are still working have had their hours or days reduced, sometimes without warning. Lockdowns have also cost workers second jobs they needed to make ends meet. They are juggling bills and going hungry. These are some of the findings in a new survey of 900 farmworkers in 21 farm counties, released on Tuesday. The survey was coordinated by the California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS), with a wide group of researchers, farmworker organizations and policy advocates. The Covid-19 Farmworker Study (COFS) reinforces the dire warnings that farmworker advocacy organizations made when the coronavirus lockdowns began: The least protected essential workers in the country

Farmworkers Are Walking Out To Protest Conditions During COVID-19 Pandemic

May 16, 2020 Mai Hoang and Le Talamo, Seattle Times. , , ,
Yakima, Washington - Workers at Columbia Reach Pack and Hansen Fruit and Cold Storage Co. in Yakima walked out Thursday morning to protest their working conditions. They held signs asking employers for better COVID-19 safety measures, 6 feet of social distancing in the workplace, and protection from retaliation for protesting. They also want Columbia Reach to provide a hazard pay increase of $2 an hour. Thursday’s strikes are the sixth and seventh in Yakima County since Monday, with workers calling for paid sick leave, hazard pay, safer working conditions and protection from retaliation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Since May 7, workers also have walked out of Frosty Packing and Roche Fruit in Yakima, Matson Fruit Co. and Monson Fruit Co. in Selah, and Allan Bros. in Naches
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