Support Farm Workers and Their Union

 

With your help NY farm workers can win their UFW contracts We recently won five union elections in New York state, representing 500 new workers on four apple orchards and a major vegetable producer in upstate NY. Now we're fighting back against grower intimidation to get the workers the union they voted for.  We are also organizing at many other locations as workers want contracts and the protections that come with them. The need is strong. Workers are tired of being abused and taken advantage of. Here are their stories: Erik is a cabbage worker in Albion NY. He shares an illegal practice where he works: "I have to purchase my own equipment needed to work such as boots, coats, hats and gloves and spend approximately $200 for this equipment. This is money that my family needs and I know it's not right … I am hoping the union can change this practice. I know that if we're united we can win." A 23-year resident of New York, Tomasa also wants the protection of a union at her apple packing house. She shares her story about what sounds like regular exposure to carbon monoxide. "Sometimes, in the mornings when the machinery comes in to move the product, the gasses from this equipment make me dizzy, give me a headache, and once made me sleepy: it is a kind of gas that a truck emits. We have to go outside to refresh ourselves from the fumes." Santos has been picking and thinning apples in Albion NY for 8 years under the H-2A program. He shares how the farm supervisor tells long standing workers that he wants to get rid of them and replace them with his family members. "When he checks the apples we pick, he deliberately bruises the ones that we pick; but with his family members, he gives their apples only one glance and doesn't even check the quality...I want the UFW to protect me so I can continue doing my job." This new organizing drive was made possible by a recent New York law – the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act – which protects farm workers' rights to unionize and prohibits grower retaliation against those organizing. Workers want to take advantage of the new law that has opened doors for them to speak up and organize. A campaign of this sort is expensive and so are our legal fees. Please donate to help NY workers get the rights and union protections they deserve. PS: After you take action you can also share this campaign on Facebook & Twitter.

Sanctuary : A U.S. Tradition

Sanctuary: In a Great American and International Tradition

Dan La Botz

I was asked at a recent meeting of the NYC DSA Immigration Justice Working Group to say a few words to put our work in historical context and then asked me to write up my brief talk, because it might be useful to others. – DL

Our sanctuary work is in a great national and global tradition of humanitarianism and it is consistent with our social internationalist principles. Our work, while fighting for the reform of the immigration system, has as its goal the abolition of the capitalist system that causes involuntary mass migration. And while using existing law to defend immigrants and fighting for better laws, we stand opposed to the concept of the national state, which will never respect and defend immigrants as equals in our society.

We are at present working with the New Sanctuary Coalition in New York City. New Sanctuary’s method is—while never telling anyone to do anything illegal—to organize immigrant communities, the documented and the undocumented, to protect each other. In each community a place of worship is identified (a church, temple or mosque) as the local safe place. While places of worship have no special legal protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reluctant to raid such places because it will outrage the community and lead to bad publicity. Other places such as local business are also asked to become sanctuaries in an emergency and to refuse to open their doors except if there is a judge-signed warrant.