farmworkers

  • Cesar Chavez and the Enduring Poverty of Farmworkers

    Frank Bardacke's Trampling Out the Vintage explains better than any other book how the United Farm Workers under the leadership of Cesar Chavez rose in the 1960s to become one of the most remarkable and successful unions in U.S. history but then crashed and burned so breathtakingly fast that by 1990 it had essentially disappeared from the California fields.

  • Workers Challenge Big Food
    Jenny Brown
    Nov 23 2011 - 10:51am

    Where does our food come from? “Farm to fork” may sound like a doctrine for foodies, but for workers in food production and service, struggling for decent jobs, it’s an organizing goal, as they attempt an alliance to take on the food mega-corporations.

  • Tomato Pickers: Trader Joe’s Is Rotten
    Eduardo Soriano-Castillo
    Oct 28 2011 - 2:28pm

    Florida’s tomato farmworkers and their allies brought a two-year fight to specialty grocer Trader Joe’s doorstep last week, marching on its Southern California headquarters. They want the grocer to pay farmworkers a penny more per pound.

  • Fear is Biggest Obstacle, Says Farmworkers Union
    Eduardo Soriano-Castillo
    Oct 24 2011 - 10:41am

    An undocumented farmworker leader was deported last week, reinforcing the findings of a new Farm Labor Organizing Committee report that says tobacco pickers struggling to organize are stymied by fear.

  • California Farmworkers Rebound after Veto
    Eduardo Soriano-Castillo
    Sep 25 2011 - 11:38am
    ** Print only

    California Governor Jerry Brown’s June veto of a bill making it easier for the state’s 400,000 farmworkers to organize caught the Farm Workers union (UFW) by surprise.

  • Smoking Out the Tobacco Barons
    Eduardo Soriano-Castillo
    Jun 13 2011 - 10:42am

    Four years of pressure forced cigarette manufacturer Reynolds American to agree to meet with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee to discuss working conditions in its supply chain. Union activists pointed to subminimum wages as well as illnesses and heat-stroke deaths among tobacco pickers.

  • Unions Cross Borders to Organize Guestworkers
    Jenny Brown
    Jun 13 2011 - 10:23am

    Faced with a surge in guestworkers laboring in the fields, farmworker unions in the U.S. and Canada are crossing borders to organize them and to hold governments to account for programs that exploit workers.

  • A Victory and a Defeat for Farmworkers
    Jenny Brown
    Jun 13 2011 - 10:02am

    California’s United Farm Workers finally got a bill past the state legislature providing for majority sign-up union recognition. But in Canada, the country's highest court rubberstamped a law denying collective bargaining to 80,000 farmworkers in the province.

  • May Day Marches See Labor Join Immigrants' Struggle for Rights
    Eduardo Soriano-Castillo
    May 2 2011 - 3:53pm

    Tens of thousands marched nationwide May Day, demanding an end to attacks on workers and immigrants. “We have had all we can take,” said an immigrant organizer, noting record deportations.

  • Those with Least Are Doing the Most

    During this holiday break it’s inspiring to remember that sometimes it’s those with least who are doing the most to fight for the ideals that many of us will celebrate in the coming days.