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Video-Al Rojas speaks at CCWMD on farm workers death & the UFWA "partnerships"
Al Rojas, one of the founders of the UFWA spoke at the press conference of the California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day about the growing number of deaths and the role of Ca-OSHA. He also discussed the role of the UFWA in supporting a guest worker program and what that means for farmworkers in California.
Al Rojas speaks at CCWMD Press Conference on farm workers death & the UFWA "partnerships" with the growers & the politicians. 8/1/08
18 min
Al Rojas - Farm Workers Deaths & The UFWA "Partnerships" with the Growers & The Politicians
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8746525550690284327
La UFW "Piden" y se ponen de "Rodillas" al Gobernador/ UFW BEGS GOV. ON THIER KNEES
La UFW "piden" y se ponen de "Rodillas" a rogarle al Gobernador/ UFW BEGS GOV. ON THIER KNEES
La UFW "Piden" y se ponen a rogar de "Rodillas" al Gobernador/ UFW BEGS GOV. ON THIER KNEES WHILE
THEY KILL WORKERS IN THE FIELDS !
0A
Rodillados a las puertas de la oficina del gobernador, docena s de campesinos de California rezaron un rosario por sus compañeros muertos.
Brothers and Sisters.
Yesterday we held our Press conference at the State Capitol,to condemn the six (6) Farm worker Deaths and the Governor's failure to enforce the very laws that the UFW supported the Governor in signing to protect Agricultural wo rkers and his bankrupt administration and his anti-union Policies in where the Governor has Laid off 10,000 state employees and threatened the State Workers SEIU Union with paying their wages at $6.75 per hour as minimum wage because of the Budget.
What's interesting is the UFW did Not come to the State capitol yesterday to condemn the Governor's lack of enforcement in the death of the 6 Farm Workers Deaths but rather came to "Beg" the Governor on their knees to please support their "Representation Legislation",a weak performance for the Union in especially when the UFW and the anti-union Governor were the ones who supported a weak law to protect Farm Workers from the heat in the Fields and the Gov.on ly interest was in protecting the Agricultural employers and their Farm Labor contractors.
At our press conference we demanded that the UFW break with its long term cozy relationship with the anti-Union anti-worker Governor,and the "Right wing Mexican Government's Guestworker Program",instead of b egging for his support for a law that will Not Organize the workers in the fields nor will he sign ,the UFW needs to go back to why we founded the UFW and that's to Organize the workers in the fields and not the pilfering paid politicians,in especially the Democrats after all was it not Bill Clinton that gave us NAFTA and Operation Gatekeeper,so what's so different in the Republicans and the Democrats when they are the the ones who's economic policies that have created the forced migrat ion of millions of workers in at20least the western hemisphere having been forced and expelled from their homeland and abandon thei r land to come to this country as "Huespedes" "Guest workers" as i indentured servants".
The UFW is wrong in their falling prey to th e Politicos" and legislators such as "Fabian Nunez",now a paid Lobbyist,the real work is in powering the "rank and File Workers" building a strong union a Union by Farm Workers and not by those that profess to20be farm workers who have never been farm workers,the UFW belongs to the workers and Not allow to have been taken over as personal property by a family,but the workers.
Thier will be those supposed "Progessive Intelectual armchair Revolutionaries" that will defend and support the actions of the UFW as they will be defending the politics of the Democrats for the sake on the contination of the20same old politics of doing nothing but massaging thier egos,who are they those that now live in obscurity having forums and talking to themselves,the few and do nothing and live in thier comfort zone as "Left Revolutionaries".
Cros/as
Ayer vinieron los20de la UFW a Sacramento para "Cabildear" la ley apoyada por el "Lobbyists Fabian Nunez",sea una ley que les permitaria supuestamente "Representacion Sindical" y venirle y a "Pidir y rogarle" de "Rodillas" al Gobernador frente sus oficinas.
Y ayer estuvimos en conferencia de prensa con el objectivo de condenar y denunciar al Gobernador por las muertes de los ultimos 6 muertos en los campos de20la labor en los ultimos cuatro (4) meses y ademas criticar y demandar que la UFW se "Rompan" de esa relacion "Equivocada" amistosa con un Gobernador Anti-Sindicalista y Anti-Inmigrante.
Nos llego a en trevistar Univision,pero no nos exc luyeron delas20noticias sea el otro punto de vista de Denunciar al Gobernador y la UFW no vino a denuciar las muertes sino para "Rogarle de Rodillas y Piderle" al gobernador que
los apoyara con la legislacion para la ley de dictamin que le propone la UFW,sea a espaldas de los cuerpos de los
muertos estan haciendole al juego a los Politicos para su benificio,sea una campana20en legislar y no Organizar en los campos agricolas,sea menos en veni r a Prostestar.
0A
Al Rojas.
FRENTE DE MEXICANOS EN EL EXTERIOR (FME)
LABOR COUNCIL FOR LATIN AMERICAN ADVANCEMENT AFL-CIO (LCLAA)
(916) 712-4251
"POR EL DERECHO DE NO EMIGRAR !''
"NO TO UFW BRACERO PROGARMS !!"
Y NO ROGAR Y MORIR DE RODILLAS !!
UFW signs pact with Mexican state for guest workers on U.S. farms
By Susan Ferriss - sferriss [at] sacbee.co
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, April 18, 2008
The United Farm Workers union has signed an agreement with a Mexican state to help recruit guest workers to labor on U.S. farms legally – and under union contract.
"If this is something that's going to be utilized more in the future, then we've got to get in on it," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said of the H-2A guest worker program. "We're looking for enlightened employers who are willing to sit down and do this with us."
The agreement was signed in early April in the western state of Michoacan, which has a long history of migration to California and is governed by the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.
The agreement is a significant example of the UFW's acceptance that foreign laborers are an inevitable part of U.S. agriculture. The union was founded in the 1960s as an ardent foe of the old bracero farm guest worker program with Mexico.
In 1986, however, the UFW helped farmworkers obtain legal status during an amnesty. Over the last decade, the UFW has also joined farm groups to lobby Congress to pass a bill allowing farm laborers to receive conditional legal status and then green cards if they continue to work in agriculture for three to five more years.
Even if they achieve passage of that proposal, the UFW and growers say, legal workers would eventually move out of the fields, and others would be needed.
Growers also say they're worried that federal agents will crack down on illegal immigrants in the near future and leave them without workers.
The federal H-2A program allows growers to sponsor workers for short periods and requires them to provide housing. It is rarely used in California – the nation's biggest food producer – because undocumented workers are so plentiful. Employers complain the program doesn't admit workers fast enough to meet harvest needs.
The union's goal, Rodriguez said, would be to get involved in the H-2A program to stop abuses that riddle recruitment in Mexico and after workers arrive in the United States.
Rodriguez said the union plans to seek out employers, especially in California, willing to sign transnational contracts that guarantee rights in Mexico during the recruitment process and in the fields here.
The government of Michoacan would help find interested workers, and the UFW would match companies with workers with skills that are needed.
Jack King, government affairs director for the California Farm Bureau, said farmers "face a different world in contracting labor in the future."
"I expect there will be a lot of groups forming to bring workers into the United States," King said. "I guess we would welcome the UFW as well."
Growers in the Southeast and Midwest are the chief employers of H-2A workers now. A labor union that operates in those regions, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee – or FLOC – already represents H-2A workers on both sides of the border. In 2004, it signed transnational contracts with growers associations in North Carolina and other states representing 7,000 Mexican H-2A tobacco and produce workers.
FLOC leader Baldemar Velas-quez – who has talked with the UFW about transnational contracts – said, "The key is whether workers are empowered to defend themselves during all parts of the process," from recruitment to work. "That's what makes this agreement the cleanest operation for any of these guest worker programs in the United States."
FLOC's work helping Mexicans become U.S. guest workers has proven dangerous. FLOC's Monterrey, Mexico, office received threats from people they suspect viewed them as competition. A year ago, their Monterrey-based organizer was murdered in the union office, Velasquez said. Mexican police arrested a suspect with a history of human and drug smuggling.
Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers League in Fresno, predicted that most farmers won't be interested in working with the UFW to bring in workers under union contact. However, he said, as times change, "like any of us, I think it's smart of the UFW to communicate with those countries" that farmworkers are likely to come from.
8/1/2008 Advance Press Release-Sacramento Press Conference and Hearing On The Collapse of Protection For Injured Workers, Workers Comp Cover-up and Crisis In Healthcare
Friday August 1, 2008
Press Conference
12:00 Educational Panel on Emergency Crisis For Injured Workers, Ca-OSHA and Healthcare
4:00 PM Press Conference
With Matt Gonzalez, Former President San Francisco Board Of Supervisors
Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate
Speakers:
Steve Basile, Injured Worker Downey Studios
Sandi Trend, Mother of injured worker David Bell
Dina Padilla, Injured Kaiser worker BEST
Christy Howarth, Injured teacher, Teachers Association of Long Beach
Al Rojas, Latin American Labor Council
David Mitchell, Husband of Deceased Unite-Here Aramark worker Bettye Jean Jones Mitchell
*initial list
Sponsored by
California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day CCWMD
http://www.workersmemorialday.org
(415)867-0628
18 min
Al Rojas - Farm Workers Deaths & The UFWA "Partnerships" with the Growers & The Politicians
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8746525550690284327
La UFW "Piden" y se ponen de "Rodillas" al Gobernador/ UFW BEGS GOV. ON THIER KNEES
La UFW "piden" y se ponen de "Rodillas" a rogarle al Gobernador/ UFW BEGS GOV. ON THIER KNEES
La UFW "Piden" y se ponen a rogar de "Rodillas" al Gobernador/ UFW BEGS GOV. ON THIER KNEES WHILE
THEY KILL WORKERS IN THE FIELDS !
0A
Rodillados a las puertas de la oficina del gobernador, docena s de campesinos de California rezaron un rosario por sus compañeros muertos.
Brothers and Sisters.
Yesterday we held our Press conference at the State Capitol,to condemn the six (6) Farm worker Deaths and the Governor's failure to enforce the very laws that the UFW supported the Governor in signing to protect Agricultural wo rkers and his bankrupt administration and his anti-union Policies in where the Governor has Laid off 10,000 state employees and threatened the State Workers SEIU Union with paying their wages at $6.75 per hour as minimum wage because of the Budget.
What's interesting is the UFW did Not come to the State capitol yesterday to condemn the Governor's lack of enforcement in the death of the 6 Farm Workers Deaths but rather came to "Beg" the Governor on their knees to please support their "Representation Legislation",a weak performance for the Union in especially when the UFW and the anti-union Governor were the ones who supported a weak law to protect Farm Workers from the heat in the Fields and the Gov.on ly interest was in protecting the Agricultural employers and their Farm Labor contractors.
At our press conference we demanded that the UFW break with its long term cozy relationship with the anti-Union anti-worker Governor,and the "Right wing Mexican Government's Guestworker Program",instead of b egging for his support for a law that will Not Organize the workers in the fields nor will he sign ,the UFW needs to go back to why we founded the UFW and that's to Organize the workers in the fields and not the pilfering paid politicians,in especially the Democrats after all was it not Bill Clinton that gave us NAFTA and Operation Gatekeeper,so what's so different in the Republicans and the Democrats when they are the the ones who's economic policies that have created the forced migrat ion of millions of workers in at20least the western hemisphere having been forced and expelled from their homeland and abandon thei r land to come to this country as "Huespedes" "Guest workers" as i indentured servants".
The UFW is wrong in their falling prey to th e Politicos" and legislators such as "Fabian Nunez",now a paid Lobbyist,the real work is in powering the "rank and File Workers" building a strong union a Union by Farm Workers and not by those that profess to20be farm workers who have never been farm workers,the UFW belongs to the workers and Not allow to have been taken over as personal property by a family,but the workers.
Thier will be those supposed "Progessive Intelectual armchair Revolutionaries" that will defend and support the actions of the UFW as they will be defending the politics of the Democrats for the sake on the contination of the20same old politics of doing nothing but massaging thier egos,who are they those that now live in obscurity having forums and talking to themselves,the few and do nothing and live in thier comfort zone as "Left Revolutionaries".
Cros/as
Ayer vinieron los20de la UFW a Sacramento para "Cabildear" la ley apoyada por el "Lobbyists Fabian Nunez",sea una ley que les permitaria supuestamente "Representacion Sindical" y venirle y a "Pidir y rogarle" de "Rodillas" al Gobernador frente sus oficinas.
Y ayer estuvimos en conferencia de prensa con el objectivo de condenar y denunciar al Gobernador por las muertes de los ultimos 6 muertos en los campos de20la labor en los ultimos cuatro (4) meses y ademas criticar y demandar que la UFW se "Rompan" de esa relacion "Equivocada" amistosa con un Gobernador Anti-Sindicalista y Anti-Inmigrante.
Nos llego a en trevistar Univision,pero no nos exc luyeron delas20noticias sea el otro punto de vista de Denunciar al Gobernador y la UFW no vino a denuciar las muertes sino para "Rogarle de Rodillas y Piderle" al gobernador que
los apoyara con la legislacion para la ley de dictamin que le propone la UFW,sea a espaldas de los cuerpos de los
muertos estan haciendole al juego a los Politicos para su benificio,sea una campana20en legislar y no Organizar en los campos agricolas,sea menos en veni r a Prostestar.
0A
Al Rojas.
FRENTE DE MEXICANOS EN EL EXTERIOR (FME)
LABOR COUNCIL FOR LATIN AMERICAN ADVANCEMENT AFL-CIO (LCLAA)
(916) 712-4251
"POR EL DERECHO DE NO EMIGRAR !''
"NO TO UFW BRACERO PROGARMS !!"
Y NO ROGAR Y MORIR DE RODILLAS !!
UFW signs pact with Mexican state for guest workers on U.S. farms
By Susan Ferriss - sferriss [at] sacbee.co
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, April 18, 2008
The United Farm Workers union has signed an agreement with a Mexican state to help recruit guest workers to labor on U.S. farms legally – and under union contract.
"If this is something that's going to be utilized more in the future, then we've got to get in on it," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said of the H-2A guest worker program. "We're looking for enlightened employers who are willing to sit down and do this with us."
The agreement was signed in early April in the western state of Michoacan, which has a long history of migration to California and is governed by the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.
The agreement is a significant example of the UFW's acceptance that foreign laborers are an inevitable part of U.S. agriculture. The union was founded in the 1960s as an ardent foe of the old bracero farm guest worker program with Mexico.
In 1986, however, the UFW helped farmworkers obtain legal status during an amnesty. Over the last decade, the UFW has also joined farm groups to lobby Congress to pass a bill allowing farm laborers to receive conditional legal status and then green cards if they continue to work in agriculture for three to five more years.
Even if they achieve passage of that proposal, the UFW and growers say, legal workers would eventually move out of the fields, and others would be needed.
Growers also say they're worried that federal agents will crack down on illegal immigrants in the near future and leave them without workers.
The federal H-2A program allows growers to sponsor workers for short periods and requires them to provide housing. It is rarely used in California – the nation's biggest food producer – because undocumented workers are so plentiful. Employers complain the program doesn't admit workers fast enough to meet harvest needs.
The union's goal, Rodriguez said, would be to get involved in the H-2A program to stop abuses that riddle recruitment in Mexico and after workers arrive in the United States.
Rodriguez said the union plans to seek out employers, especially in California, willing to sign transnational contracts that guarantee rights in Mexico during the recruitment process and in the fields here.
The government of Michoacan would help find interested workers, and the UFW would match companies with workers with skills that are needed.
Jack King, government affairs director for the California Farm Bureau, said farmers "face a different world in contracting labor in the future."
"I expect there will be a lot of groups forming to bring workers into the United States," King said. "I guess we would welcome the UFW as well."
Growers in the Southeast and Midwest are the chief employers of H-2A workers now. A labor union that operates in those regions, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee – or FLOC – already represents H-2A workers on both sides of the border. In 2004, it signed transnational contracts with growers associations in North Carolina and other states representing 7,000 Mexican H-2A tobacco and produce workers.
FLOC leader Baldemar Velas-quez – who has talked with the UFW about transnational contracts – said, "The key is whether workers are empowered to defend themselves during all parts of the process," from recruitment to work. "That's what makes this agreement the cleanest operation for any of these guest worker programs in the United States."
FLOC's work helping Mexicans become U.S. guest workers has proven dangerous. FLOC's Monterrey, Mexico, office received threats from people they suspect viewed them as competition. A year ago, their Monterrey-based organizer was murdered in the union office, Velasquez said. Mexican police arrested a suspect with a history of human and drug smuggling.
Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers League in Fresno, predicted that most farmers won't be interested in working with the UFW to bring in workers under union contact. However, he said, as times change, "like any of us, I think it's smart of the UFW to communicate with those countries" that farmworkers are likely to come from.
8/1/2008 Advance Press Release-Sacramento Press Conference and Hearing On The Collapse of Protection For Injured Workers, Workers Comp Cover-up and Crisis In Healthcare
Friday August 1, 2008
Press Conference
12:00 Educational Panel on Emergency Crisis For Injured Workers, Ca-OSHA and Healthcare
4:00 PM Press Conference
With Matt Gonzalez, Former President San Francisco Board Of Supervisors
Ralph Nader, Consumer Advocate
Speakers:
Steve Basile, Injured Worker Downey Studios
Sandi Trend, Mother of injured worker David Bell
Dina Padilla, Injured Kaiser worker BEST
Christy Howarth, Injured teacher, Teachers Association of Long Beach
Al Rojas, Latin American Labor Council
David Mitchell, Husband of Deceased Unite-Here Aramark worker Bettye Jean Jones Mitchell
*initial list
Sponsored by
California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day CCWMD
http://www.workersmemorialday.org
(415)867-0628
For more information:
http://www.workersmemorialday.org
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