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

bakersfield2 days ago

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

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

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES

Cesar Chavez Day: A look back at farmworker leader

(9 images)

President Joe Biden declared Thursday Cesar Chavez Day, in honor of the United Farm Workers president who led protests of labor practices starting in 1963. Chavez died on April 3, 1993.


Cesar Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers union, tapes an interview at ABC affiliate radio station KLOS in Los Angeles on October 1, 1976. UPI File Photo
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Chavez responds to reports that the Ku Klux Klan was trying to help lettuce growers involved in a strike with his farmworkers’ union at a press conference in Los Angeles on February 8, 1979. He threatened a nationwide boycott if violence in the strike field increased. File Photo by Bob Flora/UPI
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Chavez (L) is accompanied by San Francisco Supervisor Bob Gonzales (R) as they march in a picket line outside a supermarket in San Francisco on March 22, 1979. The farmworkers were boycotting Chiquita bananas, which were produced by a firm that owns one of the nation’s largest iceberg lettuce producers, the UFW’s chief target in a strike. Led by Chavez, some 250 picketers paraded in front of the store. UPI File Photo
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Chavez shows Helen, his wife of 33 years, a plaque from the city of Montreal expressing support for the union’s latest grape boycott on October 24, 1985. It marks the 51st time Chavez has wielded his only real weapon – the consumer boycott – since he began organizing in 1963. File Photo by Mark Loundy/UPI
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A weakened Chavez (L, sitting) holds the hand of his wife to his cheek during a song at a mass held in his honor where he broke his 36-day fast in Delano, Calif., on August 21, 1988. From left to right: Ethel Kennedy, Helen Chavez, Cesar Chavez, Juana Chavez (Cesar’s mother) and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jackson took up the hunger strike where Cesar Chavez left off, fasting on water for three days before passing on the fast to celebrities and leaders. Participants included actor Martin Sheen; the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; actor Edward Olmos; actro Emilio Estevez; Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy; Peter Chacon, legislator; actress Julie Carmen; actor Danny Glover; singer Carly Simon; and actress Whoopi Goldberg. File Photo by Martin Jeong/UPI
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Chavez (R) receives a piece of bread from Ethel Kennedy. Chavez went on the water only fast more than a month prior to protest the reckless use of pesticides that endanger farmworkers. File Photo by Martin Jeong/UPI
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Chavez ends his fast as Kennedy looks on. File Photo by Martin Jeong/UPI
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UFW and sympathizers march through Altamont Pass near Livermore, Calif., on February 26, 1975. During their 110-mile march from San Francisco to the Gallo Winery in Modesto, the 250 marchers were demonstrating in support of their 18-month strike and boycott of Gallo wines, which had a contract with the Teamsters. UPI File Photo
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Chavez talks to a crowd of some 3,100 striking Imperial Valley lettuce pickers at a mass rally in Calexico, Calif., on February 1, 1979. Chavez said that the UFW was gearing up for a possible nationwide lettuce boycott. File Photo by Mark Loundy/UPI
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California farmworkers now get overtime pay after 8 hours. Some growers say it’s a problem

Nadia Lopez

FRESNO BEE
Sun, January 9, 2022

For the past two decades during the harvest season, 58-year-old farmworker Lourdes Cárdenas would wake up at 3 a.m. to get dressed, say her daily prayers and prepare lunch before driving an hour south from her home in Calwa to a farm in Huron. She’d pick crops like cherries, nectarines, and peaches from daybreak until sundown — at least 10 hours a day, six days a week.

There would be days where she wouldn’t get home until 7 p.m or 8 p.m., depending on traffic, she said. For many of those years, she was paid minimum wage. There was no overtime pay.

“It’s a long work day,” she said in Spanish. “I’d get home very late, exhausted. It’s very hard work being in the fields.”

For years, hundreds of thousands of farmworkers toiling in California’s agricultural heartland weren’t entitled to overtime pay unless they worked more than 10 hours a day. But that has changed due to a 2016 state law that’s been gradually implemented over four years. As of Jan. 1, California law requires that employers with 26 or more employees pay overtime wages to farmworkers after eight hours a day or 40 hours a week.

That means many farmworkers like Cárdenas will now be compensated time-and-a-half for working more than eight hours. It’s a change advocates say is long overdue to provide the agricultural labor force with the same protections afforded to other hourly workers. But opponents argue that the law — though well-intentioned — strains farmers who already operate on thin margins and confront other financial challenges. Employers also say the new rules will disadvantage workers, as they’ll likely reduce hours in an attempt to cut increasing labor costs.

Under the law, which was authored by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, farmworkers began in 2019 to gradually receive the same overtime pay as employees in other industries. Farmworkers previously became eligible for overtime benefits after 10 hours, but the law has lowered the threshold for overtime pay by half an hour annually for the past three years, until reaching the standard eight hours this year.

In a Twitter post on Wednesday, Gonzalez said “none of my bills stole my heart more.”

The full implementation of the law for larger-scale growers marks the most recent win for labor advocates, who had been running a decades-long campaign to secure overtime pay for farmworkers. California is one of six states, alongside Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and Washington, to provide overtime pay to agricultural workers. Many states, however, only provide overtime pay after the 60-hour threshold has been met.

Fresno growers concerned about farmworker overtime law

Eriberto Fernandez, the government affairs deputy director at the UFW Foundation, which sponsored the California bill, said the law secures a basic protection for a workforce that has long been exploited. He added that agricultural workers were excluded from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that gave most employees the right to minimum wage and overtime pay.

“It’s a very historic and momentous occasion for farmworkers that they now, for the first time in the history of agricultural labor, have the same rights as all other Californians do,” he said. “For the first time since the 1930s, equal overtime pay now also applies to farmworkers.”

Fernandez said the law will provide farmworkers with more quality time with their families. He also said farmworkers, many of whom work ten- to twelve-hour shifts during the peak harvest season, will be fairly compensated for their labor.

“This is about leveling the playing field for farmworkers,” he said. “We’re hoping that this new law now puts farmworkers on equal ground with all other industries in California.”

But many growers say the new law could do more damage than good.

Ryan Jacobsen, a farmer and Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO, said the law doesn’t address the needs of the farming industry, arguing that agriculture requires a unique set of rules because it is subject to changing weather and seasons. And unlike other businesses, the labor-intensive industry requires more flexibility on scheduling and working, especially during peak harvest times, he said.

“Most of these jobs in the industry are still seasonal in nature and there are times of the year where there’s more work than there is in other times of the year,” he said. “In the California ag industry, there was always — up until the passage of this bill — an understanding that these employees would be able to make up these hours during these shorter windows because there’s not as much availability of farm agricultural work (in other times of the year).”

Daniel Hartwig, a fourth generation grape farmer from Easton who also works as the procurement manager at Woolf Farming, agreed. He said that the law makes an already fickle industry even more complicated for growers.

Growers have been concerned about labor costs increasing, in part due to California regulations, Hartwig said. He said many growers are reducing their employees’ hours and transitioning to cultivating other crops that don’t require as much human labor. Instead of planting fruit trees, Hartwig has switched over to nuts like almonds and pistachios, he said.

“We can’t absorb those additional labor costs,” he said. “So we’ve just kind of refocused on making sure more of our crops are able to be mechanically harvested. Those are the choices we’re making. (The law) is hurting farmers, and it’s hurting the farm workers as well.”

Fresno County broke its own record for agricultural and livestock production in 2020, peaking at more than $7.98 billion, according to the crop report from county Agricultural Commissioner Melissa Cregan. Nuts were among the top earners. Almonds were the county’s top-grossing crop, earning $1.25 billion, while pistachios made up $761 million, the report found.

Fernandez, of the UFW Foundation, said it’s “unfortunate” that farmers are reducing hours for their employees given the county’s record-breaking years.

“These are the same arguments that we hear over and over again about how these laws are going to destroy agribusiness in California,” he said. “And if anything, we’ve seen the opposite — we’ve seen the California businesses thriving. For them, it’s a matter of economics and of profitability. They’re choosing to shorten worker hours to save money that they would otherwise have paid for overtime pay.”
California farmworker wages increasing

Farmworkers are some of the lowest-paid workers in the U.S, according to a 2021 report from The Economic Policy Institute. On average, farmworkers in 2020 earned about $14.62 per hour, “far less than even some of the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. labor force,” the report found. Farmworkers at that wage rate earned below 60% compared to what workers outside of agriculture made, according to the report.

Lourdes Cardenas is shown waving a UFW flag with other demonstrators in front of the state building in 2017.

In some states though, wages are increasing. California’s minimum wage on Jan. 1 rose to $15 an hour for employers with 26 or more employees and increased to $14 an hour for employers with 25 or fewer employees.

Cárdenas is hopeful the new overtime protections and increased minimum wage will help her family in the long run. While she acknowledges that she may lose hours due to the new rules, she said the overtime law is “a huge relief” for farmworkers like her.

“We have been marginalized and mistreated,” she said. “But we are workers, just like any other worker. It’s sad they didn’t value us before. This is a big change.”

She said during the busy season farmers may not have a choice but to keep their employees working for longer periods of time, providing workers with a financial cushion they previously didn’t have. She hopes it will provide her with the ability to afford her car repairs, rent, food and other utility bills she had struggled to pay in the past.

“This is a great victory and a great triumph for us,” she added. “Sometimes, I couldn’t even afford food. But now we’ll have equal pay.”

KVPR’s Madi Bolaños contributed to this report.

Nation: “We Are Very Worried”
FARM WORKERS ARE NOT PROTECTED WHILE WORKING IN YOUR FIELDS
“I’m scared of getting sick. I don’t have any type of health insurance, anything to help me.”

Adolfo FloresBuzzFeed News Reporter
Hamed AleazizBuzzFeed News Reporter
 Posted on April 6, 2020

Andrew Cullen for BuzzFeed News

As many in the US stayed at home to protect themselves from the global coronavirus pandemic, Teresa Mendoza, a 58-year-old undocumented farmworker from Mexico, spent six days a week picking green onions in Kern County, California, cleaning them, and tying them into bunches, just a few feet away from others like her.

Faced with the possibility of having to spend weeks in quarantine, people across the US have rushed to grocery stores to panic-buy food and supplies to tide them over while hunkered down.

Yet the agriculture and food processing plants, like meatpacking facilities, have been deemed essential by the federal government amid the pandemic, creating working conditions that most people in the US have been told to avoid. And it’s only going to get worse as thousands of migrant workers are expected to return to the US as the summer harvest picks up.

Meanwhile, for employees at food processing plants, some of which have already had cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, social distancing is virtually impossible. And farmworkers with few safety nets should they fall ill say they are toiling in fields with no information on how to protect themselves.

“We are very worried,” Mendoza, who lives in Kern County and has worked in the agricultural industry for 15 years, told BuzzFeed News. “I’m scared of getting sick. I don’t have any type of health insurance, anything to help me.”

In recent days, Mendoza switched jobs and began weeding in the blueberry fields, a more lucrative job that also allowed her more space from other workers. Still, she’s afraid: “I don’t know if someone will come to work who is sick — I just don’t know.”

BuzzFeed News spoke with multiple fieldworkers who agreed to only use their first names because of their undocumented status.

There are an estimated 2.4 million farmworkers in the US, and about half are undocumented. One of the precautions health officials have instructed people take against the coronavirus, social distancing, is difficult for them. In addition to working close to one another, they often travel to work sites in packed buses or other shared vehicles, advocates said.

Over a third of the US’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts are grown in California, according to 2018 figures from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Mendoza said she’s continuing to work because she needs the income to survive. She also realized that her work helps a supply chain struggling to feed a country during a pandemic.

“I feel proud,” said Mendoza, who makes just over $500 a week. “I know that we are doing important work that is feeding the rest of the country. There are a lot of workers in the field. We are essential workers that this country needs.”


Andrew Cullen for BuzzFeed News
Teresa Mendoza, a vegetable picker in California's Central Valley.

Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers union, has been calling on agriculture employers to extend sick leave and provide easy access to health services, since many workers are undocumented and live in rural areas.

“Some of us are blessed with the opportunity to work from home and maintain social distance to protect ourselves. Unfortunately not everyone is that lucky,” Romero said on a call with reporters. “Unfortunately, farmworkers are uniquely vulnerable in the pandemic because they work in cramped, substandard, and unsanitary conditions.”

If farmworkers are deemed essential because they help get food to the public, Romero said, then it’s important to extend protections for them because it not only affects them and their families, but the food supply.

“Farmworkers have been deemed essential workers, and they’re right — they’re the people that produce all of the food in the country,” Romero said.

The United Farm Workers union (UFW) is also asking employers to eliminate the 90-day waiting period for new workers to be eligible for sick pay, stop requiring doctors’ notes when farmworkers claim sick days, clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces multiple times a day, and arrange for daycare assistance since schools are closed.

“Many farmworkers are single mothers,” Romero said. “They have to continue working to provide for their families, so they’re being forced to leave children at home … because they don’t have family support.”

Jim Cochran, owner of Swanton Berry Farm, an organic strawberry operation and a UFW-represented grower outside of Santa Cruz, California, said his farm is fortunate enough to provide housing for the 25 year-round employees in an isolated area, which could help decrease the chances of someone contracting the coronavirus.

Even before President Trump signed a sick pay bill, Cochran told his employees that if they got sick and needed to stay home for a few weeks, he would cover their wages.

"I couldn't afford to do it, but I offered to do it anyway," Cochran said. "It's a constant balancing act and that's what makes it interesting, because you have the human needs of your employees and the market needs and every day something is changing."


Andrew Cullen for BuzzFeed News
Farmworkers install irrigation pipes in a lettuce field in California's Central Valley during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak.


Leticia, a 31-year-old mother of four in Bakersfield, California, normally works as a mandarin orange picker in the winter and picks blueberries in the summer. In recent days, however, she stopped working because of fears she would bring home the virus and potentially expose her 3-year-old boy, who has asthma.

Leticia, who is undocumented, said that the decision costs her family upward of $600 a week, but it was the safer choice. The family has had to cut down on expenses and rely solely on her husband, who works as a forklift driver.

“I’m really worried. I was afraid something might happen to my son,” Leticia said. “It’s been very difficult.”

Paula Schelling, acting chairperson for the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals for the American Federation of Government Employees, said her 6,500 members want to continue to do their jobs, but they're not being given any protective gear against COVID-19 by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service.

"The one thing the agency keeps saying is follow the CDC guidelines, follow the CDC guidelines," Schelling told BuzzFeed News. "But social distancing is virtually impossible."

A food safety inspector has already died of COVID-19 in New York City, Schelling said. Four additional inspectors have since tested positive for COVID-19 at other sites.

"Ultimately, there's people out there ensuring the food is being processed safely and they need to be protected," Schelling said.

At least eight employees at a date packinghouse in Coachella, California, tested positive for COVID-19, said Lee Ellis, accounting manager at SunDate. After conducting a deep cleaning, which the company does every day, Ellis said, the packinghouse reopened.

Salvador, an undocumented 31-year-old mandarin picker also in Bakersfield, said work has picked up in recent weeks, forcing him to show up each day in the orchards. While he is separated from others while picking citrus, the drives to work are crammed with up to seven workers in a van.

“If I don’t work, my family does not eat,” said Salvador, who has four young children at home. “If the farmworkers don’t work, then the fruits and vegetables don’t arrive.”


Andrew Cullen for BuzzFeed News
Mandarin trees in California's Central Valley are shrouded in netting that keeps bees from pollinating their blooms, resulting in seedless fruit.

Earlier this month, Salvador’s children have asked him why he’s going to work if others are being told to stay home. Among his biggest worries is what his family would do if they get sick from coronavirus.

“What would happen to our expenses? How would we deal with bills? We don’t have family,” said Salvador.

While the agriculture industry is expected to receive $23.5 billion in aid as part of the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, half of farmworkers won't qualify for federal stimulus benefits because they're undocumented.

The New American Economy, an immigration think tank, estimated that in 2018, undocumented immigrants contributed $20.1 billion in federal taxes and $11.8 billion in state and local taxes.

On Wednesday, Trump was asked how undocumented immigrants, millions of whom pay taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, will survive the economic slump caused by COVID-19.

“We have a lot of citizens right now that won't be working, so what are you going to do?” he told reporters. “It’s a tough thing, it’s a very terrible, it’s a very sad question. I must be honest with you, but they came in illegally.” ●


MORE ON IMMIGRATION
Trump Ordered All Immigrants Caught Entering The US Illegally To Be Turned Back To Ward Off Coronavirus SpreadAdolfo Flores · March 20, 2020
The Trump Administration Is Now Deporting Unaccompanied Immigrant Kids Due To The CoronavirusHamed Aleaziz · March 30, 2020
Three Unaccompanied Immigrant Children In US Custody Have Tested Positive For The CoronavirusHamed Aleaziz · March 26, 2020

Adolfo Flores is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in McAllen, Texas..

Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

SEE  

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SMITHFIELD

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=TYSON

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEAT+PACKING

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS


https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=UFW

The Lethal Inequality on American Farms
During the pandemic, a broken system for migrant laborers turned even more deadly.

Jonah Goldman Kay/December 22, 2020 THE NEW REPUBLIC

BRENT STIRTON/GETTY
Farm laborers from Fresh Harvest working with H-2A visas maintain a safe distance as a machine is moved in Greenfield, California.

Unbreaking America View All

When Flavio first heard about a temporary farm work program in the United States, it sounded like a great deal. Everything from his salary to his housing would be guaranteed in advance by his employer, who would also sponsor his visa. He forked over more than $1,000 to a recruiter in Mexico and was approved in April for an H-2A agricultural visa through a farm labor contractor. These contractors, a small but fast-growing part of the legal migrant worker system, hire laborers directly and then pair them with farmers. They are also notorious for human trafficking, and many have a background in cross-border smuggling, according to the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Several weeks after his visa was approved, Flavio boarded a bus, chartered by the contractor, that would take him from his hometown in Hidalgo to the farm in North Carolina.

The problems started when the contractor asked Flavio and his co-workers to smuggle nearly $50,000 across the border. “Before we got to the border, they gave us each $1,000,” Flavio said. “After we got past the checkpoint, they took it right back.” (Flavio asked that he be referred to only by his first name and not name his employer because of an ongoing lawsuit and fears of retaliation.) This would prove to be the first in a series of labor violations, including cramped and unsafe accommodations, that would force Flavio to lose his visa and his opportunity to earn a living.

Over the past decade, farmers have faced severe workforce shortages—a paucity exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many American workers have avoided agricultural employment since the pandemic began, choosing to stay closer to their families and avoid the crowded working conditions of many farms. To meet their labor needs, farmers have turned to hiring foreign workers who come to the U.S. on temporary agricultural visas, mainly the H-2A program, which allows employer-sponsored workers to stay in the U.S. for up to 10 months every year. In theory, this helps farmers fill employee shortages while providing the workers with a higher income than they could earn in their native countries; employers must pay a living wage and offer safe housing for employees. The Department of Labor, which administers the H-2A program, monitors working conditions on the farms and investigates allegations of wage theft and abuse.

Or at least that’s the intent. In practice, the H-2A program binds migrant workers to their employer, who controls every part of their lives, from work hours to living conditions to transportation. Since the employer also sponsors the visa, they also wield significant control over workers’ immigration status and whether they’ll be rehired the next year. Farmers usually hire the same group of workers every year, so if any speak out about violations, they’ll likely be out of a job when the next season comes around. In effect, workers are forced into an exploitative and one-sided relationship that leaves them vulnerable to all kinds of abuses. Joe Biden’s administration will have a chance to alleviate some of these problems by policing employers’ behavior and reversing a Trump-directed wage freeze. But more expansive reform—like allowing these workers, who spend most of their time in the U.S., to qualify for lawful permanent residency—seem sadly far off.

During the pandemic, this unequal system turned lethal. Only a handful of states have issued mandatory protection for farm workers during the pandemic. In April, the Trump administration declared that H-2A workers were essential to national security and increased its processing of new visa applications. However, the administration never provided updated worker safety regulations, leaving housing and transportation in the hands of the farmers. The results were deadly, in some cases. In Texas, a 48-year-old man on an H-2A visa died from Covid-related complications after his employer denied him medical care. In California, an H-2A worker died after contracting the virus during an outbreak in his employer-arranged congregate housing. Similar cases have been reported across the country.

Nonetheless, employers continue to pack workers into motel rooms and trailers, according to Lauro Barajas, the regional director for the United Farm Workers in the area around San Francisco. They frequently decline to implement social distancing on the buses that transport workers from their housing to the fields where they work. Very few offer protective gear in the cramped packing houses or adjust conditions in the field to accommodate social distancing. Health insurance, which is not a requirement for the H-2A program, remains out of reach for most workers.

Flavio felt the iron grip of his employer as soon as he arrived in North Carolina. His contract was clear—he’d work 35 hours a week on a blueberry farm, and the farm labor contractor would pay for a hotel for him and his fellow workers. But when he got there, he found out that the contractor had actually signed an agreement with another farm, more than an hour and a half away, planting sweet potatoes. The hotel he had been promised turned out to be a run-down trailer that he shared with more than a dozen other H-2A workers.

“There were only two bedrooms for 19 workers,” Flavio said. “We were sleeping on mattresses on the floor.”

After he complained to the local farm workers’ union, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, he was moved into a hotel, where he was kept for nearly a week without work or pay. In late June, Flavio was forced to quit in order to find other work. His employer had paid out less than a quarter of the total contract.

Wage theft is particularly rampant among farmers and farm labor contractors who employ H-2A workers, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. Last year, the Department of Labor identified 12,000 labor violations in the H-2A program. The vast majority of those were wage violations. According to the Labor Department, farmers owed 5,000 workers a total of $2.4 million in back wages. Farm labor contractors were by far the most egregious offenders. Because many employees choose not to file complaints out of fear of retaliation, these numbers likely paint only a partial picture of the situation.

Employers have been given free rein to mistreat workers like Flavio under the Trump administration. The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, which is responsible for investigating labor violation complaints from H-2A workers, faced unprecedented budget and staffing cuts. In 2016, there were around 1,000 investigators; by 2019, there were just 780, according to the EPI report. At the same time, the number of H-2A workers increased dramatically—from around 135,000 in 2016 to more than 200,000 last year. As a result, even when workers manage to file complaints, there is a slim chance that they will be investigated.

Often, as a defense, farmers claim they are too broke to adequately compensate their employees or fulfill their contracts. Surely some farmers face unstable income and operate on slim profit margins. But the federal government has failed to police genuinely bad actors who abuse the H-2A system. Many farmers who commit multiple, severe labor violations have been allowed to hire H-2A workers, usually without needing to prove that they’ve changed their ways.

Just two days before Election Day, the Department of Labor proposed changes to the wage structure that governs wages for workers on H-2A visas, who are already some of the lowest-compensated workers in the U.S. labor market. But the Labor Department has proposed freezing those wages until 2022 and then raising them annually at a significantly lower rate than before. By the department’s own assessment, this would result in an unparalleled “transfer” of income from workers to farmers.

There is a certain amount of irony in this. If the regulation goes into effect, the very organization charged with protecting H-2A workers from wage theft would be executing the largest transfer of income from workers to farmers in the history of the H-2A program. To put that into perspective, over the past two decades, the Department of Labor ordered employers to pay $76 million in back wages. The new wage-rate system proposed by the Trump administration would result in $178 million in lost wages every year.

Fixing the H-2A program’s broken wage system would involve a series of regulatory changes at the Department of Labor. That would be fairly easy for the incoming Biden administration to implement, according to Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute and the author of the report on H-2A wage violations. The proposed wage freeze is already the subject of several lawsuits filed by Farmworker Justice on behalf of the UFW. If the wage freeze is found to be invalid, the Biden administration could simply choose not to litigate it further. Even if the wage freeze goes into effect, the new secretary of labor could choose to publish new regulations to supersede the Trump administration cuts.

While new regulations could take up to a year to go into effect, there is precedent for such an action. In the waning days of the Bush administration, Elaine Chao—the secretary of labor at the time—cut wages and protections for H-2A workers. Barack Obama replaced Chao with Hilda Solis, who issued new guidance that restored the previous regulations, effectively nullifying the Bush administration’s changes.

More immediately, the Department of Labor under Biden could issue guidance to the agriculture industry on pandemic-related safety measures. In the lead-up to the election, Biden repeatedly called for increased testing and safety precautions for agricultural workers. “President-elect Biden is committed to strengthening labor protections and ensuring all workers, regardless of status, have access to safe working environments and the necessary protections to report labor violations without fear of retaliation,” said Jennifer Molina, a spokesperson for Biden’s transition team.

There are also signs that Biden is committed to broader reforms of the H-2A program, particularly those relating to citizenship. Currently, workers on H-2A visas aren’t eligible for permanent resident status, regardless of how long they’ve worked in the U.S. As part of a broader modernization of the H-2A program, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act would provide a pathway to legal status for H-2A workers. The bill, which was passed by the House in 2019, is currently stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Biden’s current immigration plan proposes legislation that is almost identical to the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. His plan supports “compromise legislation” that would allow longtime agricultural visa workers to gain legal status and be fast-tracked to permanent residency and eventually citizenship. However, Costa says that any meaningful legislation would be a “heavy lift” for Biden, given the likely opposition he would face from the Republican-dominated Senate. It’s also unclear how hard the new administration will push on immigration reform given a recent NPR report that Biden’s team is “uncomfortable” with the policies proposed by immigration activists.

When he quit his job, Flavio also lost his visa. He is now undocumented and stuck in limbo, unable to work legally in the U.S. or return home to Mexico. He’s waiting for the results of a lawsuit against his employer, who owes him more than $4,000 in missing wages. What started off as a chance to earn a decent income and send money back to his family has turned into a living nightmare. Without his full wages for the contract, he doesn’t have enough to pay off his debt to the recruiter in Hidalgo, effectively trapping him in the U.S.

“I didn’t expect to be undocumented—it’s not what I wanted at all,” Flavio said. “But until I pay off my debt, I can’t see my family. I’m stuck here.”

Jonah Goldman Kay  is a writer based in New Orleans.

Vice President Harris is wrapping up her midterm campaign push by meeting with union leaders a day before the elections
Juliana Kaplan
Mon, November 7, 2022 

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) tours an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) training facility on September 7 2020 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with union leaders on Monday in California.


Harris will meet with United Farm Workers and dial in to a Unite Here get out the vote call.


Unions are popular right now among Americans, making them a rarity among many issues.

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with union leaders on Monday to discuss the Biden administration's continued support for workers, according to a White House official.

Harris, who has her own union and activism roots, has emerged as one of several high-level members of the Biden administration on the frontlines of meeting with workers and supporting the resurgent labor movement.

Harris will meet with leaders from United Farm Workers in Los Angeles, along with joining a Unite Here call focused on turning out the vote in swing states like Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

UFW recently staged a 24-day long march in an effort to get California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign onto legislation that would ease the process for farm workers to unionize. Newsom eventually signed on to an amended version of the bill. Unite Here represents service workers across restaurants, hotels, and other leisure and hospitality businesses.

Harris has hit the road ahead of the midterms, bolstering mostly female candidates and focusing on reproductive rights as Democrats pull out all of their stops to try and fend off a potential red wave. Along the way, according to a White House official, she is prioritizing meeting with local labor leaders.

Harris chairs the Biden administration's task force on strengthening unions and union membership. In May, Harris — along with co-chair Marty Walsh, Biden's Secretary of Labor — welcomed union organizers from the likes of Starbucks and Amazon to the White House. The president made an appearance at that event, which Alex Speidel, a lead organizer with United Paizo Workers/CWA, told Insider was "an unbelievable surprise."

The Biden administration has made clear its intentions to embrace organized labor. One of Biden's first actions in office was to dismiss Peter Robb, the Trump-appointed general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. Instead, Biden installed Jennifer Abruzzo, an NLRB veteran who had been serving as a union-side lawyer for the Communication Workers of America. Abruzzo has already made her mark on the agency, working towards ending the practice of mandatory anti-union meetings. Petitions for union representation are up 58% in the first 9 months of fiscal year 2022 compared to fiscal year 2021, according to the NLRB.

"President Joe Biden and I are determined to lead the most pro-union administration in America's history," Harris said in April remarks. "Unions negotiate better wages and safer working conditions for millions of workers around our country."

Organized labor has emerged as a rare issue that Americans seem to largely be on board with. Unions are at their highest approval level since 1965, according to Gallup, with 71% of Americans approving of them.

That comes as Americans' confidence in everything from religion to Congress have wavered. Another Gallup poll from June surveyed Americans about their confidence in 16 major institutions, including the presidency and the Supreme Court. Only organized labor did not see a drop in confidence from the year prior.

Now, as Democrats head into the uncertain midterms the administration is again turning towards organized labor.

Harris "has been focused on reaching women, young people, and communities of color," a White House official said. "There's an inherent link to labor unions and the members that compose those unions, and just the critical importance of this moment to recognize what's at stake in this election and the progress that the administration has made, but that we need to continue to build on."