Thank you, Richard Hobbs and Human Agenda, for the privilege of sharing with you this evening. Warm congratulations go to each of the DECKS Awards recipients.
We also applaud David Bacon for decades of championing farm workers—covering stories and exposing abuses often ignored by other journalists.
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It is an honor to stand with you as the first Latina immigrant woman to lead a national union in the United States.
That transition came during a time of progress and strength for the United Farm Workers under my predecessor, Arturo Rodriguez. We have recently achieved a lot—much of it nearby on the Central Coast.
• For years, farm workers only got pay raises when the state minimum wage rose. Yet the UFW has helped pull wages for many farm workers above the minimum wage in California. This year, farm workers began benefiting from the landmark law sponsored by the UFW in 2016. It grants phased-in overtime pay after eight hours a day. That law ends—in California—the racist exclusion of farm workers in 1938 from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
We are sponsoring a federal bill to enact eight-hour overtime for all American farm workers, authored in the Senate by Senator Kamala Harris.
• Worker pay also rose from negotiated and re-negotiated union contracts. They cover vegetable, mushroom, wine grape, tomato, dairy, citrus, berry and poultry workers in three states. Most California mushroom workers are unionized—with these pickers averaging $45,000 a year plus generous benefits.
Under the re-negotiated UFW contract with Salinas-based D’Arrigo Brothers—one of America’s largest vegetable growers—the employer pays 100 percent of the 624 dollar-per-month costs of complete family medical, dental and vision coverage.
The average unionized fresh tomato harvester in the Central Valley earns 29 dollars and 50 cents an hour.
The union has contracts with companies such as Gallo of Sonoma, one of America’s largest wineries, plus union agreements in Oregon and Washington state.
Five hundred million dollars in health and pension benefits have been paid to farm workers and their families under UFW contracts—most in recent decades.
• To better serve Central Coast farm workers, last year we dedicated our 10,300-square foot one-million-dollar Central Coast Farm Worker Center—a state-of-the-art facility serving union and non-union workers in Salinas.
• Recent landmark UFW legislative and regulatory victories protect both union and non-union farm workers, including the 2016 overtime statute and the state law sponsored by the union letting farm workers use neutral state mediators to hammer out union contracts when growers won’t negotiate them.
Too often we consoled the grieving families of farm workers who died from extreme heat. After a string of heat deaths, in 2005 the UFW convinced Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to issue the first comprehensive regulations in the nation protecting California farm and other outdoor workers from dying or becoming ill when temperatures soar. We worked with the Jerry Brown administration in 2015 to strengthen enforcement.
A bill sponsored by the UFW and UFW Foundation would extend heat-illness protections to all U.S. workers with a federal standard.
• The UFW worked with the Obama EPA to provide farm workers the same pesticide protections other American workers enjoyed for decades. Now we are fighting the Trump EPA, which is rescinding the protections.
• The UFW is a leader in the national movement for immigration reform. We negotiated with grower groups to create the agricultural provisions of the bipartisan 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill. They would have let immigrant farm workers earn permanent legal status by continuing to work in agriculture. It passed the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote but died when House Republicans refused a vote.
This month, after tough negotiations with lawmakers from both parties, the UFW, UFW Foundation and most major grower organizations introduced landmark new bipartisan compromise legislation. It would let undocumented farm workers apply for the right to permanently stay in this country and eventually earn a pathway to citizenship.
Why is the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019—introduced in the House by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (Democrat of Calif.) and Dan Newhouse (Repubican of Washington)—so critical?
Last year, a farm worker couple—Santos Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Porfecto—died outside Delano, California in a horrible car crash while fleeing ICE agents. Santos and Marcelina’s only sin was toiling in the fields to support their family. They and their six orphaned children, ages eight to 18, are just a few casualties of Donald Trump’s cruel war on hardworking immigrants.
Undocumented farm workers’ biggest concern is what makes them so vulnerable to abuse: lack of legal status. This is why we helped craft the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.
We are enthusiastic about passing this bill that would help bring stability to both growers and farm workers. Farm worker children would no longer have to worry whether their moms and dads are coming home from work.
Immigrant farm workers would feel secure following the crops to other regions and states. They could easily return to join loved ones in their home countries for funerals, weddings and other vital functions.
This bipartisan compromise would be the first time the U.S. House of Representatives—under either party—passes an agricultural immigration reform bill.
• Finally, the union has pioneered bold new initiatives. They include the UFW Foundation, a sister organization in our movement that is now the largest provider of immigration legal services in rural California.
The UFW helped found the Equitable Food Initiative, a consortium of unions, consumer and environmental groups, growers and major retailers. They collaborate to produce safer food while meaningfully improving wages and protections nationally and internationally. EFI has already impacted some 30,000 women and men in four countries through unique training and accountability programs—ensuring safety and higher pay by having farm workers, growers and retailers work together.
And the UFW founded the CIERTO, to remedy abuses of H-2A workers. CIERTO works with employers and workers on both sides of the border to ensure no farm worker pays for the right to work, and to stabilize the workforce and end intimidation.
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I was born in Mexico and am proud of my U.S. citizenship and my Mexican and Zapotecan heritage.
Before becoming president, I was blessed by serving as secretary-treasurer and chief administrative officer of the union. The UFW and I are graced with an experienced and supportive team.
Early this year I fasted for five days in Seattle against the Darigold corporation over alleged retaliation against dairy workers complaining about grievances such as being cheated out of their pay.
I led a delegation of labor leaders, elected officials and dairy workers to the Seattle headquarters of Starbucks, which buys from Darigold dairies. After much pushback, a Starbucks official finally came out to meet with us.
“There is nothing I can do,” this man claimed. “We can’t take sides,” he said.
“We’re not asking you to take sides,” I replied. “We’re just asking you to call Darigold—to ask them to meet with us.” Starbucks still resisted.
Then one of the dairy workers, Josephina Luciano, stepped forward. She was kicked in the face by a cow in 2017, knocking out 11 teeth. She nearly died. For a long time she couldn’t even kiss her three young children.
“If you won’t listen to me, then at least look at me,” Josephina demanded—and she opened wide her disfigured mouth. “I was kicked by a cow. I was in a pool of my own blood. Later my employer falsely claimed I was not a full-time worker and I lost my workers’ comp benefits.”
The Starbucks’ man had tears in his eyes. “There are other workers who want to share their stories,” I told him, and offered to translate.
“No, I’m from Puerto Rico,” he said. “I speak Spanish.”
Another female dairy worker told how her husband had to watch while she was sexually harassed. A male dairy worker said he wished he got treated as well as the cows he tends.
Sisters and brothers, I have a passion within me to help Josephina Luciano and other farm workers change their lives.
My mission is helping make sure the UFW keeps fighting for these and other farm workers across the nation.
Thank you.
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