Baldemar Velasquez: Farmworkers need labor law protections

by Baldemar Velasquez

Baldemar Velasquez

A Call to Wage a National Campaign for Farmworker Labor Rights

I agreed to be one of the original sponsors of the call to build this movement – not a call for specific legislation, i.e. NLRA – but rather to confront the historical racism inherent in the first call for labor legislation in the 30’s.

At a time when most of the farm workers in the Deep South were Blacks, the Dixiecrats that controlled Congress would never see blacks on an equal  field as their counterparts in other industries.   Every reform that’s been debated since has excluded farm workers, including the current drive over the Employee Free Choice Act.  

We do not want to be an amendment to anyone’s legislation.   Not the Employee Free Choice Act, not the NLRA, or anything else.    WE WANT A LAW THAT SPEAKS TO OUR UNIQUE SITUATION.

Even if there would be those that would counter for inclusion under the NLRA, there are immediate glaring realities making such a law impractical or impossible.   The historical response time for the NLRB to respond and conduct an election would never be possible for a 5-6 week cucumber harvest, or a 6-7 week tomato harvest.   Even it that were possible an unfair labor practice complaint would run into the same problem.    Needless to say, anyone in his/her sound mind would conclude that something different would be required.

This does take nothing away from the fact that the debate of historical discrimination and measuring agricultural workers on a different standard is a debate that must finally be waged.   We must not continue to stand back, wring our hands over what the opposition might do and end up doing nothing.   The fear that the opposition might take this to push a law that is worse than nothing, similar to what they did in Arizona, is understandable, but this is not a provincial debate but rather a national dialogue that will play differently in Brooklyn and Chicago than in Yuma.

If we don’t have this debate, we will continue to languish with complaint-driven laws that workers turn to as a last resort and cannot use them on a daily basis.    What we really need is a vehicle that we can use to deal with the work problems that bother us when we get out of bed in the morning.

Labor rights, freedom of association and the right to form unions get a lot of lip service, but it’s time to push for these rights with a vigorous national campaign for the first time in American history.

As president of the second largest farm worker union in the country, I am requesting that you follow us into this national debate and if a fight transpires, so be it, let us fight the good fight!

Hasta La Victoria!

Baldemar Velasquez Founder/President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (FLOC)

HOW TO BECOME A FOUNDING MEMBER OF LABOR JUSTICE:

Email your NAME, CITY, STATE, OCCUPATION and/or TITLE TO: laborjustice2009@hotmail.com