Church leaders and FLOC members gather to remember
the deaths, abuse, and neglect of migrant farmworkers.
Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO
Church leaders and FLOC members gather to remember
the deaths, abuse, and neglect of migrant farmworkers.
As in previous efforts over the past 40 years, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee AFL-CIO is involved in a struggle to bring justice to those farmworkers whose labor provides Reynolds Tobacco with its basic product.
Following the principle of self-determination, the FLOC movement is devoted to farmworkers having a direct voice in their own conditions, both at the work site in the fields and labor camps, and in the policies and activities of their union in the defence of their human and labor rights.
Field workers whose labor produces the product for Reynolds Tobacco experience many abuses, including:
| Tobacco farmworker labor in hot and humid fields all day... all for miserable wages. |
| Tobacco farmworkers are subject to subject to heat stroke, Green Tobacco Sickness, and exposure to hazardous pesticides that can cause cancers and birth defects. |
| The treatment of tobacco farmworkers is not unlike the days of slavery and share cropping, exploitation of a poor and desperate people who have few alternatives for supporting their families. |
After long, hot days in the fields, tobacco farmworkers return to labor camps that are deplorable, cramped and uncomfortable, and pose many hazards and health risks, including:
| Tobacco farmworkers live in deteriorated labor camps with poor plumbing, no cooking facilities, hazardous wiring, and other conditions that most of us find unacceptable. Why is this "normal" in our society today? |
| Labor camps are isolatd and visitors are discouraged, contrary to legal standards. |
| Labor camp housing is very bare, with minimal sleeping and living arrangements. |
| Labor camp bedding is usually mouldy matresses, and workers have to use their meagre earnings to buy fans for ventilation. |
| Labor camp showers are mouldy and rarely cleaned during the growing season. |
| Labor camp toilets are often not working and rarely cleaned or repaired, leaving workers with filthy facilities. |
| Migrant labor camps are often infested by various bugs. |
Compare these conditions to other "migrant workers", like oil workers in Alaska or on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Are workers who produce agricultural products any less essential than those who produce oil?
| The underlying cause of these condtions is an agricultural supply system dominated by large corporations for
their own benefit, at the expense of farmworkers whose labor in the fields provides their basic product. An example
of this is the Reynolds Tobacco supply system.
Farmworkers are denied a voice in this system to seek a fair return for their labor in the fields, which produces the crops that enables Reynolds executives to get rich. |
FLOC seeks to gain a direct voice for those farmworkers in the decisions that affect their working and living conditions. When workers can be their own inspectors, are not afraid of retaliation for speaking out against abuses, and have equal input in the control and benefits of the agricultural supply system, then there can be true justice.
FLOC organizes farmworkers to take a united stand for themselves.
| FLOC works with farmworkers to help them learn more about the structure of the agricultural supply system that puts them at a disadvantage, and also how they can unite to have a collective voice in their own conditions. Farmworkers whose labor produces the product for Reynolds Tobacco talk about their conditions with FLOC President Baldemar Velasqeuz. |
| Farmworkers whose labor produces the product for Reynolds Tobacco talk about their conditions with FLOC organizers. About 40 workers at this camp signed authorization cards for FLOC to represent them in collective barganiing agreements. Note the "No Trespassing" sign. |
FLOC workers have a direct voice in their own conditions
| FLOC farmworkers have a direct voice in labor negotiations, where they can advocate for their own working and living conditions. |
| Farmworkers under FLOC contracts are able to resolve most problems right at the work site. Almost all problems are resolved informally between the work, a FLOC organizer, and the grower, but if necessary the worker can file a formal grievance. |
| FLOC members also have a direct voice in their own conditions through their union. Here, FLOC members at a Constitutional Convention vote on a resolution that guides the union's directions and activities. |
In a corporation that earns about $2 billion in profits a year, Reynolds' corporate leaders have chosen to enrich themselves... while ignoring those who labor in the fields to produce the company's basic products. FLOC has decades of experience in addressing farmworker conditions, but Reynolds' leaders refuse to even talk with FLOC. Reynold's leaders even refuse to hear their own shareholders who wish to address the farmworker issue. Instead of considering the plight of farmworkers, the multi-millionaires who lead the Reynolds corporation have pushed through such initiatives to allow themselves to receive up to $60 million more in bonuses each year.
| While farmworkers earn poverty wages and live in crude housing, Reynolds' corporate leaders are multi-millionaires who live in luxury.
Think what a huge differnce even a small fraction of these executives' benefits would make in the lives of the farmworkers whose labor provides the basis for the wealth of Reynold's corporate leaders! |
How do you overcome the economic and politial power of corporations? Farmworkers have been disenfranchised and marginalized by the agricultural system, excluded from any voice in their own conditions. But when a critial mass of the public comes together to demand justice, they can counterbalance corporate greed to bring justice to farmworkers.
| In all of the FLOC campaigns, it has been the popular support of people like you who have made the difference! |
There are a number of ways that thousands of people like you who believe in justice have contributed to the justice for farmworkers.
| When a critical mass of the society comes together to stand for justice, signifant social changes are possible. Here, FLOC supporters in Cincinnati call local supporters to urge them to contact Reynolds and urge the corporate leaders to talk with FLOC. |
| Farmworkers have limited resources to sustain their movement for justice. Here, supporters in Detroit hold a fundraiser BBQ and music festival to help support the FLOC Reynolds campaign. |
When we stand together for justice, how can Reynolds deny farmworkers a direct voice in their supply system?
© FLOC 2009