Farmworkers

Mexican Farmworkers Reach Agreement After 2-month Strike

May 21, 2015 Ashoka Jegroo, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Farmworkers, Food and Agriculture, Mexico, Worker Rights and Jobs

After two months of striking, marching and blocking roads, farmworkers in Baja California, Mexico have finally reached an agreement with the Mexican government that may end their current struggle for better wages and working conditions. Mexican government officials and farmworker leaders held an 18-hour meeting in Ensenada, Mexico starting on May 13 that ended the next day with the government agreeing to meet several demands of the striking workers. Among the demands being met by the government are requirements that companies get certification ensuring that they’re not using child labor, social security benefits for retired farmworkers, equal rights and pay for women, housing built for laborers, recognition of the farmworkers’ union, and healthcare for workers.

Farm Worker Advocates Target Ben & Jerry’s

May 13, 2015 Mitch Wertlieb & Melody Bodette , www.digital.vpr.net Resist! Capitalism, Farmworkers, Workers Rights and Jobs

A group of farm workers is targeting ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's, a brand known for its social responsibility, asking the company to take part in a new program to ensure that the workers on Vermont dairy farms are guaranteed fair housing and decent wages. The Milk With Dignity Program is an effort of the group Migrant Justice, which is dedicated to human rights and food justice. Ben & Jerry's buys much of their milk in Vermont from St. Albans Cooperative. Many of the dairy farms that sell their milk to St. Albans use migrant labor on their farms. There are an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 migrant workers on Vermont's 800 dairy farms. "There are many problems that our community faces," said Enrique Balcazar, a 22-year-old who came to Vermont to work on a dairy farm.

Thousands Of Farmers Demonstrate In Delhi Against GM Crops, Policies

May 7, 2015 GMWatch, www.gmwatch.org Resist! Farmworkers, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, India, Labor Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Thousands of farmers have taken to the streets in a Kisan Maha Panchayat (farmer meeting) in Delhi, India, in protest at the Modi government’s anti-farmer policies, which include uncritically promoting open field trials of GM crops. There is some speculation in India that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition, led by Narendra Modi (now prime minister), may have come to power with the help of generous funding of their election campaign by the GMO lobby. It is said that this may explain their conversion to the pro-GMO cause. Though there appears to be little transparency in political funding in India, we hope the Modi government will move to allay fears of corruption by publishing full details of its election campaign funding.

California Agriculture May No Longer Be Safe For Human Consumption

May 7, 2015 Natasha Geiling, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! California, Farmworkers, Food and Agriculture, Oil & Gas

As California farmers face a fourth year of the state’s historic drought, they’re finding water in unexpected places — like Chevron’s Kern River oil field, which has been selling recycled wastewater from oil production to farmers in California’s Kern County. Each day, Chevron recycles and sells 21 million gallons of wastewater to farmers, which is then applied on about 10 percent of Kern County’s farmland. And while some praise the program as a model for dealing with water shortages, environmental groups are raising concerns about the water’s safety, according to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times. Tests conducted by Water Defense, an environmental group founded by actor Mark Ruffalo in 2010, have found high levels of acetone and methylene chloride — compounds that can be toxic to humans — in wastewater from Chevron used for irrigation purposes. The tests also found the presence of oil, which is supposed to be removed from the wastewater during recycling.

Important Strike In Mexico: Farm Workers Paralyze Baja Farms

April 3, 2015 Dan La Botz, www.socialistproject.ca Resist! Farmworkers, Food and Agriculture, Mexico

Thousands of farmworkers in the San Quintín Valley of Baja California, just 185 miles south of the U.S. border, struck some 230 farms, including the twelve largest that dominate production in the region, on March 17 interrupting the picking, packing, and shipping of zucchini, tomatoes, berries and other products to stores and restaurants in the United States. The strikers, acting at the peak of the harvest, were demanding higher wages and other benefits to which they are legally entitled such as membership in the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), the public health system. While there have over the last two decades been several large scale protests by workers in San Quintín, usually riots over the employers failure to pay their employees on time, this is the first attempt by workers to carry out a such strategic strike.

50 Years After Farm Workers Boycott, New Movement Needed

April 1, 2015 Cherri Senders, www.alternet.org Resist! Capitalism, Farmworkers, History, Workers Rights and Jobs

If Chavez were alive today and grappling with the nation’s epidemic of economic inequality, he might well embrace another tactic: building a consumer movement to support good jobs. While activists have yet to seize on this strategy, the opportunity is there for a 21st century visionary to rally the public in the same way that Chavez did half a century ago. A mass movement for good jobs may seem like the polar opposite of a boycott, but it is really just the other side of the same coin. It relies on the same principle as the boycott -- that consumers should not patronize companies that mistreat their employees -- but offers a different call to action.

Direct Action In The Berry Fields

December 14, 2014 Felimon Pineda, www.labornotes.org Organize! boycott, Farmworkers, Worker Rights and Jobs

One, a big strike, I remember it well—by that time the people knew how to defend themselves. The blackberry boxes were being paid at $4.25, and it was too low for the people. They organized as a crew and asked for a raise. They said if there was no raise then they would not work. They united and communicated with the other crews. Later that day, when the people were gathered, the president of the union [Ramon Torres] arrived. Back then we weren’t yet fully unionized, but since he was president of the committee, the workers asked him to demand a raise for them. Since the people were ready to stop work, the president was able to secure an increase in the wage per box. The very next day he was fired. I was working in another, smaller crew, picking blackberries. I received a phone call from him telling me I needed to be there. We had come to an agreement that none of the committee could face the company by ourselves. I said, “I can’t, because I’m working,” and he said, “well, I was also working, but they are calling me to the office now and I want you to join me.” I said okay and went. He was already in one of their offices. He was surrounded [by] company executives, the president, and six or more security guards. A security guard came up to me and told me that I couldn’t enter. After five minutes Ramon exited, saying that he was fired. He was wrongly accused. Since all the people knew that the day before he had negotiated a pay raise, we [just] had to talk to the people. Everyone was ready, and they stopped.

U.S. Farmworkers and Palestinian Farmers Share Prize

September 12, 2014 Adam Mason, www.viacampesina.org Educate! Award, Farmworkers, Food and Agriculture, Palestine

Des Moines, IA — The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) is honored to name the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) of Palestine, based in Gaza and the West Bank, and Community to Community Development /Comunidad a Comunidad (C2C) of Bellingham, Washington, as co-recipients of the 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize. Their stories of continuous struggle to defend the rights of their communities – farmers and fishers in the occupied Palestinian territories and migrant Mexican farm workers in Washington State, both seeking to produce their own food, on their own land, in their home communities – stand in stark contrast to the storylines coming from agribusiness: that technological changes to crops can meet human needs and resolve hunger.

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