CALIFORNIA FARMWORKERS MARCH TO URGE NEWSOM TO SIGN VOTING RIGHTS BILL

 

CALIFORNIA FARMWORKERS MARCH TO URGE NEWSOM TO SIGN VOTING RIGHTS BILL

CALIFORNIA FARMWORKERS MARCH TO URGE NEWSOM TO SIGN VOTING RIGHTS BILL
By David Bacon
Capital & Main, 8/15/22
https://capitalandmain.com/california-farmworkers-march-to-urge-newsom-to-sign-voting-rights-bill

 

 
Veteran farmworker activist Yolanda Chacón-Serna leads the 24-day march to expand California farmworker's voting rights into Visalia. All photos by David Bacon.


Lourdes Cardenas has worked the fields in the San Joaquin Valley for more than 20 years. "I've worked in all the crops - grapes, cherries, peaches, nectarines. I'm marching because I want representation and to be respected," she said. The respect she and other farmworkers seek is not only from their employers, but also from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Cardenas and members of the United Farm Workers (UFW) are supporting a proposed law to make it much more difficult for growers to use workers' fear against them in unionization votes. Their proposal would extend to farmworkers the right to vote at home instead of in the fields, among other protections.

Cardenas said that change would mean they would "not be intimidated by the bosses because we want a union. If we have to vote in front of them, they intimidate us, make us fear they'll fire or suspend us." According to the California Poor People's Campaign, "AB 2183 would give more choices to farmworkers so they can vote free from intimidation - in secret, whenever and wherever they feel safe."

California legislators have agreed. Fifty signed on as sponsors of AB 2183, the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, authored by Assemblymember Mark Stone (D- Santa Cruz). It passed the State Assembly on May 25 by a wide margin, and was sent to the Senate floor on August 11, where its passage is virtually certain.

Newsom, however, has not made a commitment to sign it. A march to gain the governor's signature began in Delano on August 3. Twenty-six people made a commitment to walk for 24 days up the San Joaquin Valley, all the way to Newsom's Sacramento office. Each day marchers and supporters cover between 9 and 18 miles. UFW Secretary Treasurer Armando Elenes even counts the steps in a program on his cellphone. On the fifth day it recorded 14,000 paces.