Called a crucial figure in the growth of the United Farm Workers, Ben Maddock dies at 87 | News

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He joined the US Marine Corps in 1956 and the trade union in 1969. According to legend and friends, he lived in a barn for part of his childhood and grew up on a family’s small citrus ranch in the countryside of Woodlake, Tulare County. Agriculture was in his blood and the octopus was in his hands, but Ben Maddock continued to fight for the rights of the weakest individuals in California’s rich agricultural industry.

Maddock, in collaboration with trade union leader Cesar Chavez, has organized large-scale vineyard strikes and international boycotts to gain historic legal protection for farm workers, unprecedented. Helped negotiate and manage union contracts.

Maddock, who became Chavez’s trusted best friend and a key figure in the union, died at his home in Wasco on July 9. He was 87 years old.

“Ben was an important person, one of the people who literally helped build UFW in the late 1960s and late 1980s,” UFW long-time spokesman Mark Grossman said in an email.

Grossman recalled that Maddock was closely associated with the organization, negotiations, contract management and strikes of agricultural workers in the Delano region.

“Ben from Anglo in Tulare County was part of the rainbow of farm workers who once existed in the valley,” Grossman said.

Maddock was born in Turea on June 27, 1934 and graduated from Woodlake High School in 1953. After working in the Marine Corps, Maddock began working as a tilesetter.

Guided by a desire for fairness and workers’ rights, Maddock led a strike by his fellow tile workers. Although the labor behavior turned out to be successful, Maddock was blackballed by his employer, Grossman wrote in honor of Maddock.

In the end, interested in making things better for the workers, he took up-and-coming labor activists to UFW’s office on “40 acres” on the outskirts of Delano.

According to Grossman, he promised to volunteer for the union for several months. Instead, he stayed for 22 years.

Maddock oversaw the distribution of the union newspaper, El Marquerado. Maddock, who refused to go to Keen’s Lapas when Chavez moved UFW’s headquarters there in 1971, became the union organizer of Delano.

Grossman said there was skepticism because Maddock did not speak Spanish. But he proved that he could.

Former UFW President Arturo Rodríguez praised him at a funeral mass in Wasco on Thursday. He was flying to service from San Antonio, Texas.

Paul Chavez, son of Chavez and chairman of the Cesar Chavez Foundation, was also present, as was farm workers and union officials holding the UFW flag. Grossman was also there, and he provided a copy of Eulogy to the Californians.

Rodriguez began by talking to Ben Maddock’s widow, Maria Maddock.

“Ben was a friend, mentor, teacher, and trusted adviser to Cesar Chavez and many of us in the trade union for 22 years,” Rodriguez said. “Your loss is also our loss.”

As the mourners listened, Rodriguez told stories one after another.

“I first met Ben in Detroit when I was organizing a second boycott of grapes in 1973. Ben came from a 73-year bitter and bloody grape strike in the Delano region, and with Maria. Born from a boycott.

“I was a young, environmentally friendly and idealistic organizer who recently graduated from college,” Rodriguez recalls.

The former union president said he was fortunate to learn from Maddock about organizing, strategy and building campaigns.

“These lessons never left me,” he said.

“For months we were picketing in front of A & P supermarkets throughout the Detroit Metro area, hoping they would be the first major supermarket chain to remove table grapes from the shelves.

“As we continued picketing in their parking lot, A & P management threatened to arrest us,” he recalled. “One Saturday, Ben helped us all make a plan. In the event of an arrest, we had to be ready to take action immediately.”

When the first picketters were arrested, they were found to be George and Sylvia Delgado, and two daughters Teresa and Christina, four and two years old, respectively.

They were also the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez.

“The next morning, on Sunday, the cover of the Detroit Free Press had a photo of her parents holding her while Teresa and Christina were all arrested,” Rodriguez said. “The sight has brought a lot of public contempt for the management of A & P.”

It was also a turning point for boycotts, and Maddock’s organization helped make that happen.

Maddock returned to Delano in 1975 and headed a 40-acre field office, Rodriguez said. His work will be crucial to the success of the procession, boycott, and enactment of what has become an agricultural and labor-related law.

According to an obituary about Maddock’s family, Maddock left UFW 22 years later. He was hired as a field representative for the California School Employees Association, where he worked until he retired.

Ben and Maria moved to Wasco to be surrounded by their families. In later quiet years, Maddock loved Christmas lights and was known for playing board and card games with his niece and nephew, and watching birdwatching, gardening, and the Dodgers.

But his years at UFW helped define his values ​​and life.

Among the funeral mourners were dozens of current and former UFW colleagues who worked with Maddock, Grossman said.

“They came from all over California and from outside the state,” he said. “Many people were hoisting the black eagle flag of a small union in churches and graveyards.”

A large UFW flag covered the casket and was presented to Maddock’s widow after the graveyard worship was carefully folded into a triangle.

Years after his busy days, the 40-acre land is now recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

“There was a giant who walked those 40 acres,” Rodriguez told the rally on Thursday. “Names like Kennedy, Chavez and Reuters.

“There are countless other giants who have walked on those premises,” he said. “Many of them have been lost in history. One of them is Ben Maddock. Let’s never forget his name.”

Reporter Stephen Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter: @semayerTBC.

Called a crucial figure in the growth of the United Farm Workers, Ben Maddock dies at 87 | News Source link Called a crucial figure in the growth of the United Farm Workers, Ben Maddock dies at 87 | News

Biden’s support of California farmworker bill makes it ‘complicated’ for Newsom

2022/09/07

Joe Aguilar of Sacramento waves a United Farm Workers flag in front of the state Capitol in Sacramento after the union finished a 24- day march on Aug. 26, 2022, to call on Gov. - Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As Gov. Gavin Newsom weighs whether to veto another California farmworker union bill, he has a new and unexpected voice in his ear: President Joe Biden, who has decided to inject national politics into a state labor battle.

Over Labor Day weekend, Biden issued a statement backing a bill that would allow farmworkers to vote by mail in union elections. Supporters say the measure would make it easier and less intimidating for them to organize.

“Farmworkers worked tirelessly and at great personal risk to keep food on America’s tables during the pandemic,” Biden said. “In the state with the largest population of farmworkers, the least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union. I am grateful to California’s elected officials and union leaders for leading the way.”

Presidents seldom intervene in state legislative fights. But underlying Biden’s involvement is the tension between an unpopular incumbent and a rising national Democratic star. Newsom has criticized party leadership for failing to aggressively push back against Republican policies on abortion, climate change and other issues. Biden’s support for the bill is a little pushback of his own, some political professionals say.

“There’s some back-room positioning between the two of the biggest Democratic politicians in the country,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican Latino political consultant. “The president has taken on a much more aggressive posture with all of his critics, whether they’re Republicans or whether they’re Democrats and this is another sign of that. There’s no other reason for the president to weigh in on this other than to put Gov. Newsom in his place.”

Assembly Bill 2183, sponsored by the United Farm Workers and authored by Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Monterey Bay, passed in the final days of the legislative session. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto it.

He vetoed a similar measure in 2021, citing technical issues. This year, the governor has been facing pressure to sign from labor advocates backing UFW, which led a 335-mile march across California to demonstrate in support of the bill.

Biden’s involvement in the farmworker debate adds another layer to Newsom’s already complex decision, political consultants and communications experts say.

“Joe Biden just made Gavin Newsom’s life a whole lot more complicated,” said Dan Schnur, a political communications professor at the University of California, Berkeley and USC and former spokesman for Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. “It’s not unheard of for a president to weigh in on state legislation. But it’s relatively rare to put the squeeze on a governor of your own party like this.”

Newsom’s office did not respond to requests Monday for comment.

Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, project director for the UCLA Labor Center, could not recall the last time a sitting president weighed in so strongly on a state labor issue.

It’s yet another “message” sent in Newsom’s direction, said Rivera-Salgado. Lorena Gonzalez, new head of the California Labor Federation, did a similar move when she invited UFW back into the fold of the state’s labor movement.

“I would read it as trying to put some political pressure on Gavin Newsom to come through,” he said.

Rivera-Salgado added that Biden has put Newsom in an “interesting” position and further open to criticism that the governor has a “soft spot” for growers. The winery Newsom co-founded just bought a Napa vineyard for $14.5 million.

Some labor leaders were not surprised by Biden’s support. He is widely seen as the most outspokenly pro-union president in decades and made headlines in early 2021 for the 22-inch-tall bronze bust of farm labor leader Cesar Chavez behind his desk.

The UFW also endorsed Biden for president in 2020, banking on hopes he would implement farmworker safety protections and immigration reforms. And in March 2021, first lady Jill Biden visited Forty Acres in Delano, the storied birthplace of UFW.

“This shows his commitment to farmworkers.… And it shows that the farmworkers have done a really good job using their voices to share their struggles directly with individuals,” Gonzalez said.

Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro have also urged Newsom to sign the bill.

UFW President Teresa Romero said the union had been in communication with the “different people” in the administration, sharing farmworker challenges to organizing. Biden’s White House director of Intergovernmental Affairs is Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Chavez’s granddaughter.

“It’s very meaningful to us and to the workers, to know that we have the support of the president,” Romero said.

Romero remains “50/50” on whether the governor will support the bill. She notes there has been no communication with Newsom’s office since the bill was approved by the Senate last Tuesday.

AB 2163 continues to face staunch opposition from the agricultural industry and grower associations. They argue UFW no longer prioritizes organizing and is ineffective in advocating for better working conditions. In its 1970s heyday, the union had 80,000 members in California and other states. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, it now numbers a little over 6,000.

Rob Roy, president and general counsel for Ventura County Agricultural Association, called the union “virtually nonexistent.” He pointed to the last five years during which UFW has not successfully filed for an election to represent California farmworkers.

“I think the president ought to keep his nose out of state laws dealing with unionization,” Roy said. “But given his background, being pro-union, I guess he just can’t help himself.”

Roy said he expected Biden to have no effect on Newsom’s decision.

During the last few days of the legislative session, Newsom signaled he may veto AB 2183 and has not taken a public stance on the measure since lawmakers approved it.

“Gov. Newsom is eager to sign legislation that expands opportunity for agricultural workers to come together and be represented, and he supports changes to state law to make it easier for these workers to organize,” Erin Mellon, Newsom’s communications director, told The Fresno Bee in August.

“However, we cannot support an untested mail-in election process that lacks critical provisions to protect the integrity of the election and is predicated on an assumption that government cannot effectively enforce laws.”

The main sticking point is whether growers would be notified about an impending union election. UFW staffers say doing so would allow employers to union bust and take action against workers for organizing, including deporting those who are undocumented.

Newsom’s office says not notifying growers about upcoming union elections goes against national labor organizing standards.

Stone, the bill’s author, said his office worked closely with both Newsom and UFW on the bill, which he thinks the governor largely supports, except for “a piece of it he does not like.” He said that’s why the bill includes a five-year sunset provision that would allow lawmakers to reconsider it.

“It was really an attempt to try and say, ‘We know we’re not completely there, but we’re willing to continue to work,’” Stone said.

William Gould IV, former head of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and the National Labor Relations Board, said he had respect for Biden, but that the president was given “bad information” on the bill.

“President Biden does not understand farm labor law situation in California. … This is complete make believe. I’m sorry the President has fallen for this lie,” Gould said.

He echoed Roy’s sentiments and shared that, as chairman of the NLRB, UFW only filed one election petition in three years. He said farmworkers deserve protection and was in favor of more organizing. However, Gould said this bill would not help improve unionization rates.

“No one is trying to organize the farmworkers,” Gould said. “They should be organized and hopefully, at some point there will be a union that will try to organize them.”

Newsom has shown support for organized labor in certain situations. On Monday, he signed a bill that will create a fast-food council to help low-wage employees improve their working conditions. This could help to soften some of the criticism from labor if he vetoes the farmworker union bill, Schnur said.

“Newsom (doesn’t) need to sign the farmworkers’ bill in order to shore up his labor credentials this year,” he said. “He took care of that with the fast-food legislation.”

Biden’s support for the farmworker union bill could give Newsom political cover to sign it, or it could make the optics worse if he vetoes it.

Madrid said it’s dangerous for Biden or other politicians to view policies like AB 2183 as a way to appeal to the Latino community. It’s unfair to stereotype Latinos as farmworkers or undocumented residents who care only about border issues, he said.

“When you poll Latino voters ... these are not issues of huge concern,” Madrid said. “They are of symbolic concern. But when you’re the governor that has to actually deal with these issues, you have to deal with substance as much or more than symbolism.”

———

© The Sacramento Be

Column: Inside the effort by two Beverly Hills billionaires to kill a state law protecting farmworkers

Michael Hiltzik
Thu, May 16, 2024 


Wonderful Co.'s billionaire owners Stewart and Lynda Resnick: philanthropists, industrialists and union adversaries. (Ryan Miller/WireImage)

Los Angeles-based Wonderful Co. — the world's largest pistachio and almond grower, the purveyor of Fiji Water, Pom pomegranate juice and Justin wines, and owner of the Teleflora flower service — wants you to know that it's committed to "sustainable farming and business practices" and sees its employees as "a guiding force for good."

Wonderful's owners, the Beverly Hills billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick, say their "calling" is "to leave people and the planet better than we found them."

Here's another side of the company. Since February, it has been engaged in a ferocious battle with the United Farm Workers over the UFW's campaign to unionize more than 600 Wonderful Nurseries workers in the Central Valley.

'We ask each of you firmly not to sign an authorization card.'

Anti-union script read to Wonderful Nursery workers by company officials

Having lost a series of motions before the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board to delay a mandate that it reach a contract with the UFW as soon as June 3 or have terms imposed by the board, Wonderful on Monday unleashed a nuclear attack: a lawsuit seeking to have the 2022 and 2023 state laws governing the unionization process declared unconstitutional.

If it succeeds, California's legal protections for farmworkers could be rolled back to conditions that prevailed before César Chavez's campaigns for farm unionization in the 1960s.

"This is an attack on farmworkers' rights," says Elizabeth Strater, the UFW's director of strategic campaigns. Farm employers "will do everything they can to prevent workers from empowering themselves and lifting themselves out of poverty."

Wonderful's lawsuit takes a page from arguments made against the National Labor Relations Board by Trader Joe's and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Both companies, facing NLRB regulatory actions, are contending that the NLRB, which Congress established in 1935, is unconstitutional.

Wonderful contends that provisions of the state's agricultural labor code violate its rights of due process guaranteed by both the state and U.S. constitutions.

At issue is a UFW drive to represent more than 600 of Wonderful Nurseries employees that began in early 2023. The UFW ultimately presented the labor board with signed cards from more than half the employees giving the UFW authority to represent them in collective bargaining on a contract, a process known as a "card check."

Read more: Wonderful Co. sues to halt California card-check law that made it easier to unionize farmworkers

The board certified the union as the workers' representative on March 1, triggering a tight deadline aimed at prompting the union and the company to reach a contract.

Read more: Column: The UAW sends a lightning bolt into anti-union states with a huge victory at a VW plant

As often happens in hard-fought union campaigns, this one has generated a cross fire of allegations of unfair labor practices from both sides — the company asserting that the union defrauded workers into signing the representation cards, the union asserting that the company browbeat more than 100 workers into revoking their authorizations to drive the approval rate below the required 50%.

Accounts from the workers themselves vary. As my colleagues Rebecca Plevin and Melissa Gomez have reported, there have been complaints about poor working conditions at Wonderful along with hope that a union would help upgrade standards. Other workers say they misunderstood that signing an authorization card was tantamount to joining the UFW.

Some workers said they had second thoughts about signing the cards after meetings with a company-hired union-buster, Raul Calvo, who told them the union would take 3% of their pay for dues. In late March, some 100 Wonderful workers staged an anti-union protest at the ALRB offices in Visalia, but the UFW has alleged that the rally was the product of company coercion. Wonderful said at the time that it had no involvement in the protest and didn't pay the workers for their time.

"These workers are so vulnerable," the UFW's Strater says. Many are undocumented or have other reasons to worry about job security, arguably making them receptive to management directives.

In this case, another party has weighed in — the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, an independent state agency. Following an investigation, the board's general counsel, Julia Montgomery, alleged that Wonderful trampled its workers' unionization rights through numerous anti-union actions, including coercing them to submit declarations rescinding their authorizations. Wonderful has denied most of the allegations.

Wonderful says that the workers submitted their declarations voluntarily, "without any request having been made" by the company. Montgomery's allegations, however, are mighty specific. She cites a series of meetings that were overtly aimed at persuading the workers to back away from the union.

That process began with employee meetings addressed by Calvo and proceeded to sessions in which workers met with Wonderful human resources personnel, Montgomery alleged. At those meetings, the company representatives read from a Spanish-language script stating that the union could have obtained workers' signatures without their knowledge, that they would be deprived of the opportunity for a secret vote on unionization and encouraging them to sign a declaration revoking their authorization cards.

Read more: Column: A Trump judge eviscerates a pro-worker regulation at the request of big employers

"We ask each of you firmly not to sign an authorization card," the script read. In a line that sounds like it came fresh out of the playbook of anti-union companies such as Starbucks, the script stated that the company wants "to be able to work one on one with you without the interference of a union."

Some workers were led into a large conference room, where company representatives were assigned "to help the worker draft the declaration" revoking the authorization cards, Montgomery asserted. Some agents typed up declarations for the workers and handed them to the workers to sign.

A few words about the plaintiffs in this lawsuit:

The Resnicks are prominent philanthropists and political donors (mostly to Democrats). Their companies' effects on the environment and California agriculture generally are checkered. Indeed, their most eye-catching charitable donation, a record-breaking $750-million pledge to Caltech in 2019 for research into climate change and “environmental sustainability,” isn't inconsistent with a desire to "greenwash" some of their other activities.

As I previously wrote, while it might be churlish to suggest that the gift was devoid of genuine altruistic impulses, it would be naive to assume that altruism is the whole story.

A few years earlier, the Resnicks' Justin Vineyards had been caught clear-cutting an oak forest near Paso Robles to make room for new grape plantings. The work was halted by San Luis Obispo County authorities, and the firm eventually agreed to donate the 380-acre parcel to a land conservancy.

Although the Resnicks say they are "dedicated to our role as environmental stewards," their Fiji Water subsidiary looks like the antithesis of environmental sustainability. It profits from transporting water in plastic bottles more than 5,500 miles from the island nation to California and beyond, places that already have abundant water.

Wonderful's pistachio and almond orchards have complicated efforts to apportion water among the state's competing stakeholders. Because the trees require watering in wet years or dry, their acreage can't be fallowed during dry spells.

That has made the water demand of the agricultural sector less flexible, and arguably has contributed to the devastating decline of the state's salmon fishery and the drying out of rivers and streams that once supported a diverse population of fish and birds.

Read more: Column: American unions have finally remembered how to win

This isn't the first time that the Resnicks have wrapped themselves in the U.S. Constitution to fend off a regulatory agency. In 2010, they asserted that the Federal Trade Commission infringed their 1st Amendment rights by holding that they made “false and misleading” and “unsubstantiated” representations about the health benefits of their Pom pomegranate juice, which amounted to unlawful marketing.

The company pitched the juice as “health in a bottle.” Wonderful put up billboards with the words “Cheat Death” next to a picture of the bottle. Its ads claimed Pom has beneficial effects on prostate cancer (“Drink to prostate health”), cardiovascular health and even erectile dysfunction — all of which claims were judged scientifically dubious by regulators. The company fought the FTC up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected its appeal.

The 2022 and 2023 laws that Wonderful is challenging — indeed, the very creation of the ALRB in 1975 — reflect a reality known in California for more than a century: Bringing labor rights to farmworkers is notoriously difficult.

The first major farm union organizing drive in the state, among hops pickers in Wheatland, north of Sacramento, was broken up by four companies of the National Guard called out by Gov. Hiram Johnson in 1913. A statewide dragnet for organizers from the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, ensued, followed by hundreds of arrests. No further significant farm organizing took place for 16 years.

In 1975, a state law passed at the urging of César Chavez's UFW gave union organizers the right to meet with workers on the farms where they toiled. But the Supreme Court, voting on partisan lines, struck it down in 2021—the law allowed organizers to "invade the growers' property," as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote.

To address the heightened difficulty agricultural unions faced, the state Legislature established the card check process in 2022 and 2023. The laws incorporated a tight timeline governing certification and contract bargaining, and stipulated mandatory mediation if no contract is reached with a set period.

Read more: Column: Julie Su would be a perfect Labor secretary. That's why Big Business hates her

The goal was to address "the basic failing of labor law both at the federal and state level, which is delay," said William B. Gould IV, emeritus professor of law at Stanford and a former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

"Delay works against the interests of workers and unions, because employers hope that they'll grow weary," Gould told me. The tight deadlines were designed to place the burden of delay on the employers.

Wonderful maintains in its lawsuit, filed in Kern County state court, that the accelerated process has deprived employers of constitutionally protected due process rights by allowing a union to be certified by card check before the employers have a chance to object — effectively rendering the certification and the negotiating deadline faits accomplis.

That's not quite true, however. The law allows anyone to file objections within five days of certification. After that, any certification can be revoked if the employers' objections are later upheld at a hearing, and any mandated contract can be invalidated. Indeed, Wonderful filed its objections in time, citing the workers' declarations; an ALRB hearing on its objections has been underway for weeks.

What appears especially to irk Wonderful is that the board has twice rejected its motions to suspend, or stay, the certification and negotiation procedure until after it rules on the company's objections. The board responded that the law doesn't provide for such a stay.

The company's lawsuit thus amounts to an end run around the law. Gould is skeptical that Wonderful's constitutionality claims will win much favor from California judges, but the case may be aimed at the notoriously anti-union U.S. Supreme Court majority.

"This Supreme Court has indicated that they want to reverse much of what was done in the 1930s," a high-water mark for progressive labor and public interest laws, he said. In its lawsuit, Wonderful "has thrown buckets of paint against the wall in the hope that something will stick. Maybe they'll be right on some of it."

Hundreds of California Farmworkers Are Marching for Union Voting Rights

The marchers are demanding better protections against voter suppression by employers in union elections.

UNITED FARM WORKERS / @UFWUPDATES

BY Sara Herschander, 

Waging Nonviolence

August 6, 2022

On Wednesday, around 250 farmworkers and their supporters took their first steps of a 24-day Delano-to-Sacramento march to demand more voting options for farmworkers when casting a ballot on unionization.

The march, organized by United Farm Workers, or UFW, has been billed as the “March for the Governor’s Signature,” a reference to demands that California Gov. Gavin Newsom sign a new bill meant to protect farmworkers from voter suppression by employers.

“California is a very wealthy state and agriculture contributes to that wealth, but farmworkers continue to be poor and their families suffer — that’s what we need to change,” Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the UFW, told a crowd of marchers gathered at Forty Acres, the site of UFW’s original headquarters in Delano.

“We want everything that you’re doing here to reach the hearts of the growers and the heart of the governor,” said Huerta, before shouting “Si se puede,” a phrase she originated in 1972, while campaigning against legislation that denied workers’ right to organize during harvest seasons.

Over the next several weeks, participants are expected to march roughly 15 miles per day, before reaching the state capital in Sacramento on Aug. 26, which Gov. Gavin Newsom declared “California Farmworker Day” last October. They’ll be marching in the scorching summer heat, behind the same Lady of Guadalupe banner that UFW has been using since the 1960s.

According to Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns at UFW, that history was palpable during the march’s launch, which she called a kind of “family reunion” for farmworkers, organizers, clergy and other union workers who attended in solidarity with the farmworker movement.

The new bill — the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, AB 2183 — would allow farmworkers to cast a vote on unionization through mail-in ballots or at a drop-off location. Current regulations dictate that workers must cast ballots at in-person-only polling places, typically located at their place of employment, where they may face intimidation from supervisors.

“The vast majority of those elections are on the growers’ property, under the watchful and often retaliatory eye of their bosses,” said Strater, who explained that such a system has “an incredibly chilling effect” on a largely undocumented workforce.

Even as policymakers have lauded farmworkers as essential workers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve largely sided with the agricultural industry in curtailing or neglecting workers’ right to organize over the past several years. As of 2021, fewer than three percent of farmworkers belong to a union, and farmworkers still lack the right to collectively bargain and unionize in most states.

On Cesar Chavez Day this April, farmworkers and advocates organized marches in 13 California cities criticizing the governor’s continued refusal to meet with farmworkers to discuss the most recent bill. Newsom also vetoed a similar bill in September 2021, which would have allowed for mail-in unionization ballots.

Farmworker organizers faced another blow in June 2021, when the Supreme Court ruled in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid that labor organizations could no longer go on grower’s property to meet with workers.

Still, longtime organizers like Roberto “El Capitan” Bustos, who led UFW’s famed 400-mile march to Sacramento in 1966, were in attendance on Wednesday to encourage marchers to persevere despite political setbacks.

“I’m here again — I’m still marching,” Bustos told those gathered on Wednesday. “You can’t get lost. Follow our footprints. You’re going to see our footprints along the way.”

United Farm Workers endorses Biden, says he's an 'authentic champion' for workers and their families

The Canadian Press
Tue, September 26, 2023 



WASHINGTON (AP) — The United Farm Workers on Tuesday announced its endorsement of President Joe Biden for reelection, saying that the Democrat has proven throughout his life to be an “authentic champion” for workers and their families, regardless of race or national origin.

The farm workers' union was co-founded by Cesar Chavez, the late grandfather of Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who Biden named as his 2024 campaign manager. Her father, Arturo Rodriquez, is a past UFW president.

Julie Rodriguez and “special guests” were expected to formally announce the endorsement later Tuesday at Muranaka Farms in the city of Moorpark in southern California.

“Throughout his life, President Biden has been an authentic champion for workers and their families, regardless of their race or national origin," UFW President Teresa Romero said in a written statement. “The United Farm Workers has seen first hand the positive impact that President Biden has made in the economic standing, labor rights, and daily lives of farmer workers across America.”

The UFW endorsement came as Biden on Tuesday flew to the Detroit area to join a picket line with United Auto Workers members who are on strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

The farm workers’ union endorsed Biden in 2020 over Republican President Donald Trump, who leads the field of GOP candidates vying for the party's 2024 presidential nomination and the chance to challenge Biden.

Julie Rodriguez said in a written statement that the UFW's organizing has always been about fighting injustice and supporting working people, values that she said are at stake in the election.

“Some of my most cherished conversations with President Biden have been about the legacy of my grandfather and the organizing power of the UFW, because Joe Biden is a real fighter for workers, for Latinos, and for every human's dignity,” said Chavez Rodriguez. She was a top White House adviser to Biden before he named her as campaign manager earlier this year.

The union said it will organize, train and dispatch skilled organizers and Spanish-speaking members to key states, including Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Michigan and Georgia, as it did in 2020.

Darlene Superville, The Associated Press

KILLER GESTAPO

Farmworker Dies After Fall From Greenhouse During California ICE Raid

"ICE is out of control," said one Democratic congresswoman. "This is not law enforcement. It is state violence."


U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers make an arrest after pulling a person out of their vehicle during a raid on Glass House Farms in Camarillo, California, on July 10, 2025.
(Photo/Blake Fagan/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jul 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

A Mexican farmworker who reportedly fell from a greenhouse while trying to hide during a Trump administration raid on a Southern California farm has died from his injuries, the United Farm Workers union announced Friday.

Federal authorities including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, many clad in military-style gear, stormed farms in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties on Thursday to execute search warrants for undocumented people. At Glass House Farms in Camarillo—which grows state-legal cannabis as well as tomatoes and cucumbers—the invading agents were met with spirited resistance from hundreds of community members who rushed to the site in support of targeted workers. Federal officers responded by firing tear gas and less-lethal projectiles at crowds of protesters who were blocking area roadways in a bid to prevent arrests.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that officers "arrested approximately 200 illegal aliens" from Glass House Farms and another farm in Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, where protesters also descended, and were met with tear gas and pepper balls, according to local news outlets. DHS also said they found at least 10 immigrant children on the farm.

The Associated Press reported that a farmworker, identified as Jaime Alanís, phoned his wife in Mexico and told her about the raid in progress, saying he was hiding with other workers. Alanís fell from his hiding place and suffered broken neck, fractured skull, and a rupture in an artery that pumps blood to the brain, his niece Yesenia—who did not want to give her full name—told the AP.

"They told us he won't make it and to say goodbye," she said.

United Farm Workers (UFW) said Friday that "other workers, including U.S. citizens, remain unaccounted for."

"Our staff is on the ground supporting families," UFW said in a statement. "Many workers, including U.S. citizens, were held by federal authorities at the farm for eight hours or more. U.S. citizen workers report only being released after they were forced to delete photos and videos of the raid from their phones."

"UFW is also aware of reports of child labor on site," the union continued. "The UFW demands the immediate facilitation of independent legal representation for the minor workers, to protect them from further harm. Farmworkers are excluded from basic child labor laws."

"These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives, and separate families," UFW added. "There is no city, state, or federal district where it is legal to terrorize and detain people for being brown and working in agriculture. These raids must stop immediately."

The raids appear to be ramping up, even before ICE receives an historic $46 billion funding infusion via the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump last week. Video footage posted on social media in recent days showed ICE officers and other federal agents arresting people in courthouses, a hospital, and marching through a suburban Utah neighborhood.

Democratic U.S. lawmakers were among those condemning the Trump administration's crackdown and mourning Alanís' death.

"A farmworker has died following a federal raid in Southern California. This is a heartbreaking and deeply troubling development," Congresswoman Norma Torres (D-Calif.) said on social media. "Immigrant communities deserve safety and dignity. I'm calling for a full investigation and accountability."

"Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said that "ICE is out of control."

"This is not law enforcement," she added. "It is state violence."

Some observers called on Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom—who has overseen several legal challenges to the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants and protesters who defend them—to do more to help people targeted by ICE.

"If Newsom really cared about defending our state and our communities, he'd be on the line with other farmers by last night," Murshed Zaheed, a former U.S. Senate Democratic leadership staffer, said on the social media site Bluesky.

One California worker dead, hundreds arrested after cannabis farm raid

The raid is the newest escalation in President Donald Trump's campaign for mass deportations of immigrants in the US illegally.

A vehicle with the message "ICE, ICE Baby!" written in the dust on the rear windscreen stands near U.S. federal agents blocking a road leading to an agricultural facility where U.S. federal agents and immigration officers carried out an operation, in Camarillo, California, U.S., July 10, 2025.

(photo credit: Daniel Cole/Reuters)

By REUTERS

JULY 12, 2025 

A California farm worker died on Friday from injuries sustained a day earlier when US immigration agents raided a cannabis operation and arrested hundreds of workers, according to a farm worker advocacy group.

Separately, a federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to temporarily halt some of its most aggressive tactics in rounding up undocumented immigrants.

Dozens of migrant-rights activists faced off with federal agents in rural Southern California on Thursday. It was the latest escalation of President Donald Trump's campaign for mass deportations of immigrants in the US illegally.

His administration has made conflicting statements about whether immigration agents will target the farm labor workforce, about half of which is unauthorized to work in the US, according to government estimates.

The Department of Homeland Security said approximately 200 people in the country illegally were arrested in the raid, which targeted two locations of the cannabis operation Glass House Farms

.

An ICE agent in Los Angeles, June 2025; illustrative. 

(credit: US HOMELAND SECURITY/HANDOUT/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES)

ICE raids a California cannabis farm Agents also found 10 migrant minors at the farm, the department said in an emailed statement. The facility is under investigation for child labor violations, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott posted on X.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The scene at the farm on Thursday was chaotic, with federal agents in helmets and face masks using tear gas and smoke canisters on angry protesters, according to photos and videos of the scene.

Several farm workers were injured and one died on Friday from injuries sustained after a 30-foot fall from a building during the raid, said Elizabeth Strater, national vice president of the United Farm Workers.

The worker who died was identified as Jaime Alanis on a verified GoFundMe page created by his family, who said they were raising money to help his family and for his burial in Mexico.

"He was his family's provider. They took one of our family members. We need justice," Alanis' family wrote on the GoFundMe page.

US citizens were detained during the raid, and some are still unaccounted for, Strater said.

DHS said its agents were not responsible for the man's death, saying that "although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a green house and fell 30 feet." Agents immediately called for a medical evacuation, DHS said.

California Rural Legal Assistance, which provides legal services and other support to farm workers, is working on picking up checks for detained Glass House workers, said directing attorney Angelica Preciado.

Some Glass House workers detained during the raid were only able to call family members after they signed voluntary deportation orders, and were told they could be jailed for life because they worked at a cannabis facility, Preciado said.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin rejected those allegations, saying in an emailed statement that "allegations that ICE or CBP agents denied detainees from calling legal assistance are unequivocally false."

Some citizen workers who were detained reported only being released from custody after deleting photos and videos of the raid from their phones, UFW President Teresa Romero said in a statement.

"These violent and cruel federal actions terrorize American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families," Romero said.

Farm groups have warned that mass deportation of farm workers would cripple the country's food supply chain.

In her most recent comments, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said there would be "no amnesty" for farm workers from deportation. Trump, though, has said migrant workers should be permitted to stay on farms.

US District Court Judge Maame Frimpong granted two temporary restraining orders blocking the administration from detaining immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally based on racial profiling and from denying detained people the right to speak with a lawyer.

The ruling, made in response to a lawsuit from immigration advocacy groups, says the administration is violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution by conducting "roving patrols" to sweep up suspected undocumented immigrants based on their being Latinos, and then denying them access to lawyers.

Donald Trump grants ICE “total authority” to arrest “slimeball” protesters in response to violence

The US President responded to clashes between his “law enforcement officers” and demonstrators by authorising aggressive federal crackdown

 By The Week News Desk

Updated: July 12, 2025

In a strongly worded public post on Truth Social, POTUS Donald Trump has given US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “total authorisation” to arrest demonstrators protesting against the widespread repression of immigrants in the country. The announcement claimed he had witnessed instances of violent clashes between the two groups on his way back from visiting flood-ravaged Texas.

“I am on my way back from Texas, and watched in disbelief as THUGS were violently throwing rocks and bricks at ICE Officers while they were moving down a roadway in their car and/or official vehicle,” he said, further expressing his indignation at the “tremendous damage” to “brand-new” government vehicles and the “disrespect” towards the law and order of the land.

In the post, he directed the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and Border Czar, Tom Homan, to instruct all law enforcement officers faced with assault or violence to arrest the “slimeballs” responsible for the attack, adding that he was providing authority to use “whatever means to do so”, announcing that he was giving ICE “Total Authorisation to protect itself”.

Federal agents reportedly arrived at the legal cannabis cultivating Glass House Farms in Camarillo, California, on Thursday and were met by a crowd of protestors who attempted to block the way to the farm, throwing rocks and bricks at the government officials.

The ICE officers responded with rounds of what is thought to be less-than-lethal tear gas, detaining approximately 200 workers who are claimed to be undocumented. One farm worker sustained injuries that later led to his death during the raids. One protester is alleged to have fired a gun in the direction of ICE agents. No injuries related to gun violence have been reported.