In the face of lax enforcement by Biden’s Labor Department, labor organizations have stepped up to protect farmworkers.
"Looking at these corporate supply chains, we've been able to achieve more by getting union agreements through supply chain actions than we've ever been able to achieve in legislative campaigns," says Justin Flores, FLOC's vice president.
Unlike most guestworkers, many in North Carolina have a say in their working conditions and seniority rights because they belong to a union, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee.
On September 16, 2004, Mt. Olive Pickles finally came to an agreement with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, ending a lengthy boycott of the company. This groundbreaking farm workers union launched one of the most successful organizing campaigns of the last 25 years in the South and demonstrate the continued vitality of farmworker unions in the present. FLOC was successful with these workers because they became a way for workers to express their own power.
When farmworkers migrate, they carry with them their organizing experience and transnational networks—and a powerful potential for cross-pollinating fights. Recent struggles in Baja California, Washington State, Vermont and Ontario all demonstrate the power of those connections.
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