Join FLOC in Fighting for Justice for Tobacco Workers

by via James Parks, AFL-CIO

Thu, Oct 25, 2007 7:46AM

Thursday, October 25, 2007 : North Carolina farm worker Urbano Ramirez died in 2001 of heat stroke after he received no medical help. At least four more workers have died from heat stroke since then. Thousands of workers who harvest tobacco each year contract green tobacco sickness caused by exposure to harmful chemicals in tobacco leaves.

Many of these workers receive little or no medical attention.

The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which recently won a voice on the job for 8,000 migrant workers in North Carolina in a historic labor agreement, now is helping more than 25,000 tobacco harvesters in the Tarheel State to form a union. North Carolina leads the country in tobacco production with an approximate 2006 annual tobacco farm income of $506.2 million.

This weekend, hundreds of working people from Washington, D.C., and cities across the nation will join FLOC members and the North Carolina State AFL-CIO for a rally in Winston-Salem to support the tobacco workers’ fight for a better life.

The rally will kick off Sunday at the headquarters of R.J. Reynolds (RJR), the second-largest tobacco company in the United States. RJR has a long history of opposition to the freedom of its workers to join a union.

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For more information: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/10/25/join-flo...

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