A national growers’ lobby has sued the U.S. Department of Labor to freeze the wages of H-2A workers at a level barely above minimum wage.
By romanticizing local farms and assuming that ‘local’ means ‘moral,’ many miss the fact that whether produce is sent to a giant warehouse or a ‘farm to table’ restaurant, the farmworkers are denied the protections granted all other hourly workers.
Despite opposition from agribusiness, the UN Human Rights Council Declaration adopted a declaration of peasant rights. This can provide a legal basis for peasant organizations to challenge neo-liberal austerity measures.
“Over the last year,” Goldstein charges, “Rep. Goodlatte has made it his mission to create a massive new guest worker program of millions of captive workers who have even fewer labor rights than the current workers they would replace
Honoring Larry Itliong and a generation of radicals whose political ideas are as relevant to workers now as they were in 1965. This article is from the (forthcoming) May/June 2018 issue. Published in honor of May Day.
In the lead up to “The Take Back the Workplace” march in Los Angeles on Nov. 12, Latina farmworkers have written a letter of solidarity to the brave women and men in Hollywood who have come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and assault in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
In an era when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are increasingly compromised, and workers in the American food industry are often poorly paid and under-protected, advocates and commentators must consciously work to dismantle the elitism that so often surrounds cultural discussions about food in the United States.
Indigenous Oaxacan farm workers win themselves a union in the Pacific Northwest. Members are filled with ideals, starting with their own organization. Its principles for organization sound like those of radical unions throughout U.S. history. Union leaders should be workers, and the rank and file should make all decisions. No leader or staff member should have a salary higher than a worker in the fields. The union shouldn't accumulate property and large bank accounts.
“When we are really honest with ourselves, we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of people we are. ..I am convinced that the truest act of courage..is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice.”
Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
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