UFW official: Day honoring civil rights leader ‘isn’t just a history lesson, it’s giving farmworkers access to justice and fairness at work’
When Manuel Gonzalez, a farmworker for nearly 20 years, tried to vote in a union election at his last company, he said he was let go when his employer found out he was organizing.
Gonzalez, 45, said he feared he could lose his job or face other retaliation if he voted at his new workplace – a farm headquartered in Gilroy, which produces fruits and vegetables. Due to which he, his wife and sons may have to face financial difficulties.
On Thursday — the birthday of civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, at the city's San Jose Plaza, which is named after the labor champion — González spoke about his fears that speaking out as an activist would cost him his job again. may have to lift.
"If I vote in front of an observer, I'm sure they're going to retaliate against me," he said in Spanish through a translator. "We want a system similar to politicians in California like last year, when Governor Gavin Newsom faced a recall and people voted through the mail. We're asking for exactly the same thing."
Gonzalez was one of more than a dozen farmworkers who gathered to demand support for the Agriculture Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, AB2183. If passed, the law would provide more opportunities for how agricultural workers can vote in their union elections. Farmers in 13 California cities, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, protested Thursday to call on Newsom to support the bill.
In August, UFW farmworkers plan to march from Delano to Sacramento, similar to what Chavez and farm workers took in 1966, when they marched to the state capital to demand legal rights for farmworkers. March is about the time Bill will land on Newsom's desk for his signature.
United Farm Workers, or UFW, was founded in 1962 by Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and other leaders of the farmworkers movement and gained national attention through a boycott of vineyards that began in the 1960s. The workers pushed the then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, establishing the right of agricultural workers to join and choose unions for collective bargaining.
According to UFW spokesman Mark Grossman, the UFW currently has about 10,000 members in California, Washington and Oregon. Although it is difficult to tell how many farmers there are in the Golden State, Grossman estimated the number to be around 400,000.
The first iteration of the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act was passed in the Senate and Assembly last year, but was eventually vetoed by Newsom in September. A new version of the legislation, AB2183, was introduced in the Assembly in February.
“We asked to meet with Newsom today on Caesar Chavez Day, and he declined. They didn’t offer different meeting days or anything,” said Elizabeth Stratter, UFW’s strategic campaign director. Not just a history lesson, it is giving agricultural workers access to justice and fairness at work."
Newsom's office said in a statement that "the governor has committed to meeting with UFW representatives and looks forward to engaging in a meaningful dialogue to uplift our farming community" and that the union's offer of the meeting It was the day when the governor was out of the state with him. Family.
According to Stratter, farmers can experience exploitation, wage theft and retaliation from their employers, especially if they are attempting to unionize.
"Agriculture employers have a lot of control over what farm owners do," she said. "They are not only working at the workplace, but they may live in employer-provided accommodation or be transported in employer-owned vehicles. When you have this level of control over someone's life, So it's obviously a very intimidating thing to take part in a union campaign and say we want a shot at self-control of some of our lives."
Efrain Fred, who worked on the farm for nearly 50 years and retired last year, said he was participating in the demonstration to ensure that a new generation of farm workers do not face abuse at the same workplace which he had done.
“When I went to vote at my workplace to form a union, we were wearing union pins,” he said. "When my supervisor saw the pins, we were harassed, pressured to act faster and asked to raise the standard of production even though we couldn't."
Serena Alvarez, the attorney and executive director of the Salvador E. Alvarez Institute for Non-Violence, is the granddaughter of migrant farm workers and joined the protests in San Jose in a show of solidarity.
“My grandmother gave birth to my father and his siblings on the farm. It is part of my family history,” she said. “Farmers are not invisible. People drive up and down the valley every day to buy produce and we can't forget where it comes from. ,
UFW Legislative and Political Director Giv Kashkuli addressed some of the criticisms of the bill, including claims that it would undermine the secret ballot election process or act as a "card check" bill. A card check is a provision that allows workers to skip a secret ballot election by signing cards of the majority of workers expressing interest in forming a union.
"It's propaganda on both of those claims," he said. "The bill is modeled after the California Voters' Choice Act. The bill allows people to vote from their home or at work if they wish. If workers choose to use the ballot process, they are still required to sign the ballot. And if they get help filling out the ballot, that person needs to sign that as well. Then it goes in a sealed envelope, which also needs to be signed. Just like in California The Voters' Choice Act works."