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)
South African winery workers, are among the lowest paid and most harshly treated in the country. Yet their union just won a strike through a combination of worker action at home and interntional solidarity that targetted the employer's brand.
An in-depth investigation reveals that multibillion-dollar Big Ag corporations—including DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto—as well as small-scale farmers routinely use labor recruiters who crowd migrant workers in housing riddled with health and safety violations, such as bed bug infestations and a lack of running water. When state inspectors visit migrant labor camps, they find violations as much as 60 percent of the time.
Farmworkers at Washington's Sakuma Brothers farms have voted to join what could be the first union for Driscoll's berry pickers in the nation. In September, they voted to be represented by Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ), the first farmworker union led by workers who are indigenous to Central America.
There is a specific set of behaviors that constitute gender-based violence at work that includes sexual violence, verbal abuse, threats of violence and bullying. A meeting in Brazil sponsored by the International Trade Union Confederation and the Solidarity Center discussed a campaign to shape a worker-driven International Labor Organization standard ending gender-based violence at work, based about successful initiatives by local worker organizations.
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