Nov. 18th HOD Press Release (bilingual)

The Press Release from our Nov. 18th HOD media kickoff event has been posted at http://www.ncfan.org/press-release

Thanks to all who came out not only on the 18th, but for the whole week of actions in support of Harvest of Dignity! Be sure to stop by our Act Now page, and send us your own video-postcard showing why you support justice in the fields!

FAN WOOT team meets with workers to set legislative priorities

In early-October 2010, the FAN worker team met with fieldworkers near Benson, NC to prioritize a list of issues for FAN's legislative agenda. (above)

Workers received information and materials about the HOD campaign, and they also participated in a Know-Your-Rights training. (above)

Many of the H2A visa workers raised concerns about falling minimum wages. In many counties workers make $7.25/hr., and in some they make $8/hr. Next year with Obama legislation beginning to take effect, hopefully that wage will be up to $9/hr.

Thanks to all who participated!

Harvest of Shame, Harvest of Dignity

Free film screenings at the NC Latin American Film Festival

Tuesday Nov. 16
7-9 pm
UNC Global Education Center

On the 50th anniversary of the acclaimed 1960 documentary Harvest of Shame by Edward R. Murrow, the Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN) and Minnow Media present Harvest of Dignity, a documentary exploring the conditions migrant and seasonal farmworkers face in the United States today. Farm and poultry work is some of the most difficult, most dangerous, and most important work in our community. Largely a Latino population of migrants from Mexico and Central America, these workers still face poverty, food insecurity, hazardous working conditions and few protections under the law. North Carolina is home to roughly 150,000 farmworkers and 28,000 poultry workers and their families. The vast majority of the fruits and vegetables and nearly all of the poultry we eat are picked or processed by hand. However, the people who feed our families through their hard work are often among the worst paid and least protected workers in our state. 

Using documentary photos and interviews done by Student Action with Farmworkers interns, film footage with NC farmworkers, legislators and educators, and clips from the original Harvest of Shame documentary, this piece focuses on safe places to live, safe places to work, education, and stronger enforcement of workplace laws.  This film was produced in collaboration with the Farmworker Advocacy Network’s Harvest of Dignity campaign to reform conditions for NC field and poultry workers. 

Spanish and English with English subtitles.

See more at the NC Latin American Film Festival website.
Download an event flyer to email to your friends and colleagues. 

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

The Birth of North Carolina’s Food: farmhands at work 

By Erin Krauss

Many of us think of the USA as an industrialized and professionalized country, worlds away from dependence on the land. But the food we eat, whether fresh or highly processed, at one point came directly from the soil. It is easy to forget who works the soil to make food grow. In elementary school, all of us learned about the Food Chain – who consumes what and what it takes to keep things balanced. In light of Thanksgiving season this year, I propose that we all revisit this idea of the Food Chain. But instead of just thinking about what we eat on a daily basis, let us think about where it comes from. How is food planted, tended to, picked and shipped to our stores? Whose hands do this work? Have we ever shaken one of them or thanked one of them? Finally, what would we do these hands were no longer here to pick the food that nourishes our state’s people?

Where does North Carolina’s food come from? It comes from the 150,000 farm hands that tend to our soil – about 8,000 of whom are contracted and brought here on Agriculture Visas (H2A Visas). The other 142,000 are estimated to be undocumented immigrants. All of these people are needed to work the land to produce the food that NC demands. These people plant, tend and pick sweet potatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, blueberries and strawberries - NC’s top agro-crops. This job is not an easy one. Does everyone remember how hot it was this summer? Cities across NC set record high temperatures over 100 degrees. Can you imagine harvesting vegetables in 100-degree heat, carrying 2 tons of sweet potatoes on your back? This is the way that farm workers in NC make a buck. Two tons equals 4,000 pounds, which is the equivalent to the weight of your average car. Carrying a car on your back will earn $50 if you are a farm worker. (I earn $50 within four hours, sitting at a desk job at UNC.) This job is not one done only by strapping young men in perfect health; to the contrary, a number of people in the fields are women, middle-aged folks, and youth. According to the US Department of Labor, nationwide, in 2006, around 1.2 million children under the age of 20 resided on farms – many worked in the fields. Not only this, but did you know that the places farm workers live are called “Labor Camps”? Yes, you heard that right, Labor Camps. Reminiscent of times in history we’d rather let reside in the past, right? But oddly enough, these “Camps” still exist with many of the same conditions that people lived endured in the mid-20^th Century. I’m not referring to sparseness; I’m talking about deplorable conditions. Bathrooms with no separation between the stalls for basic privacy; people washing their pesticide soaked clothes in buckets; no access to kitchen space to cook food; cockroach infested, tight spaces with 20, 30, 40 people in one-room buildings; and no landline phone provided for possible emergencies. This is what is really happening in the NC food chain: unhealthy working conditions, unliveable living conditions, and total naivety among the NC population regarding where the food comes from that nourishes our bodies and keeps us alive.

This Thanksgiving let us be conscious of what we know to be true about North Carolina: first, that it is a beautiful state and one that we are proud to live in. Second, that our neighbors, the farm workers, the people we depend on to feed us, are mistreated, hidden from the public, and neglected by employers and many legislators. The very people that feed us, half the time, are unable to feed their own families due to extreme levels of poverty. One in four of these people report being injured on the job – the job we ask them to do because we don’t want to do it. And these people’s voices are kept silent. Most US Citizens will not do the backbreaking work it takes to keep our stores stocked with an overabundance of food. But what we need to do as US citizens is speak up. We have the voting, constituent power to make a difference, speak out in our communities, and to talk to our legislators.

This Thanksgiving I invite my neighbors, residents of the Triangle area, to make a daily effort to think about food. Where does it come from, how many hands touched it before it arrived on your plate? Who planted it, made it grow, harvested it, and processed it? I invite you to talk about food with your children, loved ones, friends, and co-workers. I invite you to hold an event at your church, at your home, at your school – a dinner, a film screening, or a discussion. And finally, I urge you to speak up to your representatives – and tell them that you support legislation that will ensure safe living and working conditions for farm workers and will demand the enforcement of current protections that exist for people who harvest our food. 

This fall, the Farm worker Advocacy Network is launching a new legislative and community engagement campaign to support farm workers. If you want to be involved in any way, shape, or form, call to find out about how you can help.  Farmworker Advocacy Network (919) 861-2064; ask for Erin Krauss.

New Reports Demonstrate Need for Policy Reforms

The Center for Worker Health at the Wake Forest School of Medicine just released two new policy briefs that highlight the need for reforms to better protect workers.  

A look at the data on occupational safety shows, for example, that many field workers are forced to do their jobs in unsanitary conditions:

• About 20% of migrant farmworkers reported lacking individual cups for drinking water.
• Lack of water for washing hands increased to more than 1/3 in late season.
• About 1/2 of migrant farmworkers reported having no soap available for hand washing.
• About 60% reported having no disposable towels available for hand washing.

A second policy brief, focused on pesticides, concludes that "Greater effort is needed to reduce farmworker pesticide exposure through training farmers as well as farmworkers, more cautious use of pesticides, greater enforcement of current pesticide safety regulations, and new regulations documenting pesticide use."

Stephen Colbert in Support of AgJOBS

Photo by Alex Brandon

Last week, comedian Steven Colbert caused a stir by testifying before Congress in support of the AgJOBS bill. Colbert’s larger than life persona brought a record number of cameras to the “Protecting America’s Harvest” hearing held by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security. While pundits and bloggers disagree about the appropriateness of Colbert’s appearance, very little is being said about the substance of the bill he went to Washington to support: AgJOBS. AgJOBS would provide a legal, stable labor supply and help ensure that farmworkers are treated fairly. The proposal contains two main parts:

1. An "earned legalization" program enabling many undocumented farmworkers and H-2A guestworkers to earn a "blue card" temporary immigration status with the possibility of becoming permanent residents of the U.S. by continuing to work in agriculture and by meeting additional requirements; and
2. Revisions to the existing H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program.

AgJOBS is a bipartisan bill that enjoys broad support in Congress. The AgJOBS compromise was carefully negotiated by the United Farm Workers and major agribusiness employers after years of intense conflict. AgJOBS is endorsed by major labor and management representatives, as well as a broad spectrum of organizations, including Latino community leaders, civil rights organizations, religious groups and farmworkers themselves.

AgJOBS represents a significant step forward for workers.  It has been on Congress' plate for several sessions and, with significant bipartisan and industry support, there is no reason that it can't move forward now.  If you believe that farmworkers should have more rights on the job and should have the opportunity to earn legal immigration status, please contact your Senators and Representative.  You can take action in support of AgJOBS here.

• For more background on AgJOBS, click here.
• Click here for a transcript of Colbert’s remarks.
• Click here to read "Colbert's Reminder: Immigration a Moral Issue" - a CNN Opinion article by Galen Carey, director of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals.

Here is the segment from The Colbert Report on Colbert's day spent as a farmworker:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Fallback Position - Migrant Worker Pt. 2
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Farm Labor Organizing Committee Launches Divestment Campaign

Facing South, the online magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies, reports on FLOC's new divestment campaign to challenge RJ Reynolds to address farmworker exploitation.

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the Ohio-based migrant workers' rights organization that has been increasingly focused on the U.S. South in recent years, this month launched its JPMorgan Chase divestment campaign to force the Wall Street powerhouse to pressure the Reynolds American tobacco company to help farmworkers.

"We are asking people who care about farmworker justice to close their Chase accounts, cancel their Chase credit cards, and pledge not to bank with Chase until Reynolds agrees to work with FLOC to find a solution to these abuses," said FLOC community/union organizer Diego Reyes in a recent statement.

As Reyes told me during an interview in North Carolina this summer, "We need R.J. Reynolds to understand they have a lot of responsibility in the supply chain. Neither the workers nor the farmers are paid enough."

This is the latest volley in a three-year campaign to get Reynolds American to the bargaining table to establish a three-way working agreement with workers and growers. The divestment effort is similar to tactics that FLOC has used in the past in successful efforts to organize migrant workers and insist on social justice for them. FLOC won agreements with the Campbell, Vlasic, Heinz and Dean Foods companies in the 1980s and 1990s and a landmark victory with the North Carolina-based Mt. Olive Pickle Company in 2004, the largest labor agreement in the South.

JPMorgan Chase, a leader in the consortium of lenders that funnels close to $500 million in credit to the Reynolds American tobacco company.

Read the full article.

Click here to take action.

Another human trafficking case involving farmworkers

The NY Times recently reported on a massive human trafficking scheme that brought workers from Thailand to the U.S. in order to work the fields.  

The charges, prepared by Justice Department civil rights lawyers, were brought against the president, three executives and two Thai labor contractors from Global Horizons Manpower, which recruits foreign farm workers for the federal agricultural guest worker program, known as H-2A.

The indictment, which was unsealed Thursday in Hawaii, accuses Global Horizons executives of working to “obtain cheap, compliant labor” from guest workers who had been forced into debt in Thailand to pay fees to local recruiters. The company, according to the indictment, sought to “to compel the workers’ labor and service through threats to have them arrested, deported or sent back to Thailand, knowing the workers could not pay off their debts if sent home.”

North Carolina saw a similar case several years ago.  Here's the report from CNN on the NC case:

The sad reality is that conditions in this industry can sometimes lend themselves to the despicable tactics of traffickers.  For example, in many cases farmworkers are isolated, unable to speak English, and tied to a single employer who may or may not obey the law.  As long as workers remain disempowered from controlling their own circumstances, the possibility of abuse - even trafficking - will remain.  

This fall, FAN is launching a new campaign that will help to ensure that cases like this never happen again.  Join us today.

Click here for more information on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' campaign against human trafficking.