WASHINGTON FARMWORKERS BECOME COVID-19 GUINEA PIGS...

The Reality Check: WASHINGTON FARMWORKERS BECOME COVID-19 GUINEA PIGS...: WASHINGTON FARMWORKERS BECOME COVID-19 GUINEA PIGS By David Bacon Capital & Main, 5/21/20 https://capitalandmain.com/ A room in a ...



Strike in the Yakima Valley,

Why Are Los Angeles Teachers On Strike ?

Teachers may have a contract.  An agreement was reached. A vote will be taken today !

Support the Workers'/Students' Strike on May Day

 Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes

Cosecha and DSA.

Cosecha, Immigrant Rights Organizations, Workers Centers and several unions  have launched  a  national strike billed as a “day without immigrants” to demonstrate that the country depends on the labor of immigrants and working class.  Thousands of students and  workers have already pledged to strike in what organizers expect to be the largest national strike since the Megamarches of 2006.

Join with DSA and this growing movement to strike on May 1. Don’t be left behind.  Organizers from Moviemento Cosecha have said that more than 400,000 workers have committed to strike. See story here http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/20071/the_upcoming_may_day_strike_could_be_the_biggest_in_over_a_decade

As the strike day approaches the presidents of the Almagamated Transit Union, the Communications Workers of America, the Nation Nurses United, and the United Electrical Workers  have urged their members to participate in the strikes, boycotts and protests in an outreach piece organized by Labor for Our Revolution.

We encourage DSA chapters, students and unions  to join in the massive strikes, boycotts, and other actions beginning on May 1. The movement will continue after May 1.  Information on the post May 1 events is at www.lahuelga.com

Do you have a right to strike?

Can workers strike for political issues ?

What actions can workers at risk of retaliation take to protect themselves?

In the lead up to the March Day Without Immigrants, the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL) suggested that their members who wanted to participate should take these  precautions to mitigate their risks:

1  Tell your employer, in writing, your reason for striking

2  Make sure the reason is directly related to your workplace

Inform your employer that you will be back at work on your first workday after the strike.

3. Send the message as a text and keep a copy of the text as evidence.

If you are a member of a union, discuss your strike plans first with your union representative. See a detailed description of your right to strike and how to protect yourself here. https://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/immigrants-strike-by-the-thousands/

Cosecha is a new nonviolent movement fighting for permanent protection, dignity, and respect for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Their name, "harvest" in Spanish, honors the long tradition of farmworker organizing and the present-day pain of the thousands of undocumented workers whose labor continues to feed the country. Committed to winning real victories for their community, Cosecha believes in using non-cooperation to leverage the power of immigrant labor and consumption and force a meaningful shift in public opinion.

400,000 Workers Plan to Strike on May Day

“A Day Without Immigrants” May Day Strike Announced
Over 400,000 Workers Commit to Strike in Press Conference with Immigrant Rights Organizations and Unions
Washington, DC - Immigrant Rights Organizations, Workers Centers and Unions launch a national strike billed as a “day without immigrants” to demonstrate that the country depends on the labor of immigrants and working class people of color. Hundreds of thousands of workers have already pledged to strike in what organizers expect to be the largest national strike since the Megamarches of 2006.
Speakers at the press conference included Erika Andiola as well as representatives of Movimiento Cosecha, the SEIU United Service Workers West, and the Food Chain Workers Alliance.
“May 1st is the first step in a series of strikes and boycotts that will change the conversation on immigration in the United States,” said Maria Fernanda Cabello, a spokesperson from Movimiento Cosecha. “We believe that when the country recognizes it depends on immigrant labor to function, we will win permanent protection from deportation for the 11 million undocumented immigrants; the right to travel freely to visit our loved ones abroad, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect. After years of broken promises, raids, driving in fear of being pulled over, not being able to bury our loved ones, Trump is just the final straw. As we saw during the spontaneous strikes on February 16th, our people are ready.”
Tens of thousands of members of the SEIU United Service Workers West have pledged to strike on May 1st, to demand an end to the criminalization of black and brown communities, an end to raids and deportations, and an end to worker exploitation. “The policies of the Trump administration are motivated by cruelty. They villainize black and brown people and call us rapists and violent criminals. They break apart immigrant families and separate parents from their children, and for no reason,” said Denise Solis, first vice-president of the SEIU USWW. “We are shutting it down on May 1st to stand up to these policies and show that most Americans don't support cruelty and racism.” High School and College students, as part of the Sanctuary Campus movement, will also be joining the May 1st Day Without Immigrants Strike with mass walkouts.

A Day Without A Woman

Baja berry strike apparently settled

By  Richard Marosi.

Baja California farmworker leaders and the Mexican government reached a tentative agreement Thursday that would boost wages and guarantee government-required benefits to thousands of laborers, in an apparent breakthrough aimed at ending the nearly two-month-long labor dispute.

In an unprecedented move, Mexico's federal government agreed to pay part of the workers' wages in order to meet their demands for a minimum daily wage of 200 pesos, or about $13.

Product of Mexico

"This is an agreement that will help us construct an orderly, peaceful, respectful and responsible way to provide a better quality of life for those workers who live in the valley of San Quintin," Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid said after 18 hours of tense negotiations in Ensenada.

The deal won't be formalized until a signing ceremony June 4 and some key negotiations remain, mainly to determine the industry and government's share of the wage increase. Some observers remained skeptical, noting that the language of the agreement didn't guarantee that the workers' wage demands would be met.

Even so, farmworker leaders struck a positive note as they were greeted by thousands of cheering laborers upon their return from Ensenada to San Quintin on Thursday morning.

The announcement came after weeks of stalled talks and increasingly violent clashes between protesters and police.

In a key concession, the government agreed to ensure that every laborer in the region 200 miles south of San Diego would have access to social security benefits, which provide pensions and healthcare. Some of the region's largest agribusinesses for years have been denying the benefits, which are required by law.

A summary of the 13-point agreement distributed by the Baja California governor's office says that government and industry representatives will try to reach consensus on a minimum daily wage that comes "as close as possible" to workers' demands.

Negotiations between the government and industry representatives were continuing Thursday. "To our knowledge, all parties involved have not come to a mutual resolution," said Alfredo Arvizu, a spokesman for BerryMex, a major grower for Driscoll's, the world's largest berry distributor.

Erik Nicholson, national vice president of the United Farm Workers, which has sent representatives to Mexico to monitor the discussions, said he is unaware of the Mexican government ever agreeing to subsidize farmworker wages. "They have not achieved the 200-peso goal yet," Nicholson said.

The labor standoff, which began in mid-March with laborers blocking the region's main highway to export markets, had been growing increasingly tense in recent weeks. Dozens of protesters were injured Saturday by police firing rubber bullets in clashes that were broadcast across the country.

Richard Marosi. LA Times.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-baja-farmworkers-20150515-story.html

Why Mexican Farmworkers Are On Strike

Sonali Kolhatkar

March 26, 2015    Truthdig

As many as 50,000 mostly indigenous workers have stopped harvesting produce for more than a week in protest of labor law violations. What they want is for their basic needs to be met, such as obtaining health care, getting overtime pay and vacation days, and being paid wages higher than the dismal $8 a day that most of them earn.



A farmworker holds his knife before beginning work near Holtville, Calif., earlier this year. The Mexican strike is big news among farmworker communities in the U.S. with ties to Mexico., AP / Gregory Bull,

The green Driscoll’s label on the organic berries that I buy each week are a comforting symbol of a family-owned company that got its start in California. Sometimes the berries are marked “Product of USA,” but more often than not, they are labeled as originating in Mexico. That is because Reiter Affiliated Cos., which sells berries through its affiliate BerryMex under the Driscoll’s label, grows much of its produce in Mexico. On its website Reiter claims to be “the largest fresh, multi-berry producer in the world and the leading supplier of fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries in all of North America.” Now, the farmworkers picking many of those berries are on strike, demanding a change to the brutally impoverished conditions under which they live.

Guest Workers threaten strike at Sakuma Brothers Farm

by David Bacon
BURLINGTON, WASHINGTON -- Filemon Pineda traveled a thousand miles to northwest Washington to pick strawberries and blueberries, as he's done for three years.  He left Santa Maria, California, in April, got picking jobs for himself and his wife at Sakuma Brothers Farms, one of the state's largest berry growers, and was assigned a dilapidated cabin in Labor Camp 2.

He bought a cheap bunk bed, and the company gave him some ancient mattresses, one even wrapped in an old black plastic sheet.  His three small children slept together on one bunk, while he spread the other mattresses on the concrete floor, which he covered with carpet samples.

When he went to work, though, he found he wasn't making enough to survive the coming winter, once the family returned to California.  He and his coworkers in Camp 2 stewed over their problems for several months.  Finally, in July, they'd had enough.  When the blueberry picking started, the company fired Federico Lopez on July 10 for asking for a wage raise, and workers went on strike on July 11 to get his job back.

They organized a committee, Families United for Justice, and later formulated a list of demands that included wage raises and improvements in conditions in the labor camp where they lived.  Sakuma Brothers Farms has two labor camps - temporary housing for migrant workers during the picking.  Over 200 families live in Camp 2.

Lopez was rehired on July 15, and workers returned to their picking jobs while they continued to negotiate with the company.  On July 20 they struck again, accusing the company of lowering their piecerate wage.  On July 26 they went back to work, while continuing to talk about wage increases.  Company picking records showed that 248 workers had participated in the strike - the vast majority of the 278 working at the time.

In the course of these negotiations, however, the workers discovered the limit to any improvements they could expect.  Sakuma Brothers Farms had made an application with the Department of Labor for 160 H2A guest workers in April, which a labor contractor would hire in Mexico, and bring to the farm in August to pick late blueberries and blackberries.

"They negotiated with us, which was a big achievement," explains Rosalinda Guillen, director of Community2Community.  The farm worker advocacy and organizing project she heads in northwest Washington was the workers' key source of support.

Hunger Strike ended at U.C. Berkeley

From: Ethnic Studies <hungryforaneducation@gmail.com>
May 11, 2011

Open letter to the community in support;

As of Sunday May 8th 2011, at 5:00 p.m., the hunger strike in
defense of the departments of Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's
Studies and African American Studies was suspended. We would like to
express our tremendous appreciation for your support during the 12
days we underwent a hunger strike. We learned that our community on
campus may be small, but we are strong. The powerful words of
encouragement, the determination of the organizers, and the commitment
of all the individuals who kept us company, allowed us to sacrifice
our bodies with high spirits. We thank you!

What is clear to us now, is the complete disregard the university has
for the well-being of the students. It is clear now that the
university is willing to commit nothing to maintain or achieve
real-excellence in their efforts toward diversity. It is clear to us
now that the UC Berkeley administration is willing to sacrifice
real-excellence in the departments of Ethnic Studies, Gender and
Women's Studies and African American Studies, regardless of their
enormous contributions to diversity on campus, in every aspect. We are
tired of the UC Berkeley administration's symbolic gestures.

Electrical Workers in Mexico on strike to protect their jobs

Puerto Rican Teachers Strike

Underpaid and dissed, Puerto Rico’s teachers may walk out in defiance of anti-strike ban

New York Teacher

Michael Hirsch

Feb 14, 2008 1:07 PM


After two years of failed negotiations with their Department of Education employers, Puerto Rico’s 32,000 public school teachers in the Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico (FMPR), the commonwealth’s largest union representing the bulk of the island’s 43,000 pedagogues, are mulling a strike. The issues: higher wages — the starting salary is $18,000 per year and teachers want an 18 percent raise — and better working conditions. Teachers also want decision-making power on class size and class schedules as well as repairs to much-neglected school buildings.

In Ponce some 600 FMPR members blocked streets in a recent pro-strike demonstration, while more than 500 teachers picketed in front of school board offices in Caguas. A strike could shut down some 1,400 public schools.

Strikes by public employees are illegal in Puerto Rico, and teachers and others face firing if they strike. The island’s government labor relations board decertified the Teachers’ Federation last month after some of its members authorized a walkout. The FMPR filed papers in U.S. federal district court in San Juan seeking to have the anti-strike law declared unconstitutional.

The starting base salary for a teacher in Puerto Rico is lower than any U.S. state, while the cost of living is generally higher. One new hire, a chemistry teacher, told the Associated Press: “If I am going to quit in three or four years because I’m not able to save anything, it doesn’t make a difference if they kick me out now.”

The strike could affect the mainland as well, as stranded students are expected to come to northern cities, including New York and Orlando, Fla., with sizeable Puerto Rican populations.

The fight is muddied because the current leadership of FMPR broke away from the AFT and the AFL-CIO last year, and 18 presidents of Puerto Rican unions affiliated with both the AFL-CIO and the rival union federation Change to Win denounced the FMPR’s strike plans in mid-January. They said the FMPR’s actions would hurt 100,000 public employees if the courts overturn the law, since their union recognition depends on it.

Plus, the Service Employees International Union, part of Change to Win, is seeking to replace the FMPR as the teachers’ bargaining agent. Heading the effort is SEIU leader Dennis Rivera.

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 27
Associated Press, Jan. 30, 31
Orlando Sentinel, Feb. 1