Our call as immigrant workers, families, and youth is for a reform rooted in our dignity and human rights.  We state clearly as low-wage, migrant worker-led organizations across the city and country that our call is NOT for Schumer’s blueprint of immigration reform.  Our message comes after direct consultations with thousands of our members who are undocumented low-wage workers and youth from diverse national and ethnic origins.

The statement generally calls for non-cooperation with liberal, sell-out power brokers, as did Isabel Garcia from Coalicion De Derechos Humanos, at ground zero in Arizona’s quagmire.  The call is for us to push for what we want.  One thing that we want, minimally, is at least as many rights as corporations enjoy in the reform.  I mean a country that wants to pretend to be a democracy can offer that, right?

The Schumer/Graham blueprint clearly says:

For the 11 million immigrants already in this country illegally, we would provide a tough but fair path forward. They would be required to admit they broke the law and to pay their debt to society by performing community service and paying fines and back taxes.

However, the statement makes no mention of CEOs bowing their head, admitting that they are law-breakers and paying fines. How is it fair to require the people who supply the labor to admit to breaking the law and at the same time allow those supplying the wages to get off with no penalty? So, if the corporations who hired 12 million undocumented workers get economic amnesty for having done so, then we want the same for our workers.

A “fair” approach would be to require the same thing of the employers or to allow “amnesty” for both parties. Not only should corporations match the worker’s penalty dollar for dollar, but there is also a little matter of FICA taxes for employers, which many employers have illegally exempted themselves from by hiring undocumented workers.

So, why do they get a pass? For those of us unwilling to accept the Schumer/Graham blueprint, let’s call it the “corporate amnesty plan.” Let’s use their language against them.

NO to power brokers
NO to taking their scraps
NO to corporate amnesty
Amnesty for people before corporations

News From the United Farm Workers

SIGN THE PETITION: Giumarra Vineyards sued by EEOC for Sexual Harassment &
Retaliation

Go to: http://action.ufw.org/eeoc

We need your help. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has just
filed suit against Giumarra Vineyards for allegedly violating federal law by
sexually harassing a teenage female farm worker and retaliating against farm
workers who came to her aid.

You most probably remember Giumarra, and their Nature’s Partner label, from the
e-mails we sent you last summer. We told you about their outrageous behavior and
despicable actions against workers–many of whom are organizing for a union
contract. Giumarra Vineyards, the world’s largest table grape company, harvests
approximately 1 out of every 10 bunches of grapes picked in the US. Because the
company is so huge, their behavior helps set the industry standard.

The EEOC case is consistent with the company’s behavior, as Giumarra has a long
history of intimidating workers and violating their rights. According to the
EEOC’s suit (EEOC v. Giumarra Vineyards Corporation, et al, Case No.
1:09-cv-02255), the young woman “was subjected to sexual advances, sexually
inappropriate touching and abusive and offensive sexual comments about the male
sex organ by a male co-worker.” The EEOC further alleged that after witnessing
the sexual harassment, farm workers came to the aid of the teenage victim and
complained to Giumarra Vineyards.

The result? One day after reporting the incident, the victim and people who
helped her were fired. The EEOC suit states they “were summarily discharged in
retaliation for their opposition to the sexual harassment.” (More details in the
EEOC’s press release.)

What happened to this vulnerable young girl and the others who simply came to
her defense was reprehensible and illegal.

We have begun an online petition. A delegation of women leaders will hand it in
to Giumarra/Nature’s Partner and attempt to meet with this company in
mid-February. Please sign the petition today–and send it to as many friends as
possible. Give Giumarra a strong message that you will not tolerate this
behavior.

Go to: http://action.ufw.org/eeoc

——————————————————————

Can you do one more thing?

To really drive the message home to Giumarra/Nature’s Partner, we want to ask
you to take one more step.

Can you please take 1 minute and post a comment directly on Nature’s Partner’s
website by going to http://action.ufw.org/np?

It’s easy to do. Just go to http://action.ufw.org/np and post a message like the
below example. (If you can put it into your own words that would be even
better.):

I am astonished and dismayed at Giumarra’s disregard of the law. This is not
medieval times.  In the 21st century workers have the right to speak up to
protect themselves and others.  Giumarra is not above the law. It is astonishing
that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was forced to file suit
against Giumarra Vineyards for violating federal law by sexually harassing a
teenage female farm worker and retaliating against farm workers who came to her
aid.

As the world’s largest table grape company, your behavior helps set the industry
standard. You should be ashamed of the example you are setting both in this case
with the sexual harassment and retaliation and with your dismal history of
worker protection. This behavior reflects negatively on your company and your
Nature’s Partner label.

It’s time for your company to realize that you are not above the law. Stop the
sexual harassment and retaliation for field workers who speak up or support the
UFW. Your consumers are watching.

This extra step can do a lot to make sure Giumarra and it’s Nature’s Partner
label are aware that their customers are watching them.

Thank you!
—-

United Farm Workers,  P.O. Box 62, Keene, CA 93531

Juanito Burns of the Brown Berets de Nuevo Mejico (New Mexico)

The Brown Berets and other organizations are gearing up for a protest against Larry Whitten of the Whitten Inn in Taos, New Mexico to protest his controversial employment practices in which he required all of his employees to speak only English in his presence.  He even went so far as to require that employees either change their name to an English name or to pronounce their name in an anglicized manner. 

“Marco became Mark, and he even tried to make one Chicana change her name to Buckwheat,” said Juanito Burns, Jr. Prime Minister of Los Brown Berets de Nuevo Mejico in an interview with me. “Obviously the guy has problems.”

The Whitten Inn of Taos, New Mexico made national news a few days ago when the new owner chose to fire some employees that did not want to comply with the imposition of his culture over theirs. Since that time, the Brown Berets and other organizations have protested almost everyday in front of the hotel, while groups like LULAC and the ACLU have handled much of the legal and bureaucratic parts of the complaint.

They are all gearing up for a big protest on the 14th of November, in which other Brown Berets chapters, the Black Berets, LULAC,the ACLU and other groups will all march in protest of Whitten Inn. The March will begin at 11AM at the Century 21 Realty Office and end up right in front of Whitten Inn.

For his part, Juanito is calling for us Tejanos to orchestrate solidarity protests in Kerrville and Abiline, where the Whitten in has other branches. When I explained that it might be difficult considering that Abiline was almost as close to Taos as it is to my home town in Houston, he laughed. However, that didn’t deter him from continuing to call for a boycott on all Whitten Inns.

“Do what you can do, carnal. Publicizing the march is a big help,” he told me. Juanito takes on a gentler tone than one might expect. “I don’t hate Mr. Whitten. I feel sorry for him. I don’t think that he thought he was doing anything wrong.”

The Brown Berets will be providing security and personal details for some of the Raza coming down for the event. Generally, speaking, the march is a march against racism, said the Prime Minister. People of all races are welcome and expected. The one thing that he is hoping for is a public apology that the workers never got.  “We just want him to be human, to be a person,” the Prime Minister concludes.

Check out some of the coverage on the situation. The Brown Berets are pictured.

Giumarra worker Oswaldo Luna says, “The most unjust thing I have seen in the company is that they punish us by stopping us from working, for an hour or for days …The supervisor yells at us instead of talking to us. If someone responds to him, he stops them from working.

“The supervisor Rambo began to look for things to punish us on and reasons to send us home? He stopped us for 3 hours without pay that day just because he got mad we answered him back. He told us he did not want to see us and sent us home for the day.” Oswaldo feels that the supervisor is “hoping that if he sends us home enough times, we will get fed up and leave the job.”

Farm worker Monica Martinez,who has worked at Giumarra for the last ten years, tells the story:

“The equipment–gloves and scissors for grapes and other items–we must buy ourselves without any type of reimbursement or compensation [which is illegal]. In 2005, after the election, they gave us the equipment for a while and then they stopped. Now they only give it when they want to. There are times when we need gloves and no one provides them. Making us work without gloves ruins our hands.”

In this new campaign, which they kicked off in September of this year, they are targeting Wal Mart, perhaps the biggest retailer of Giumarra’s grapes. If the union can convince Wal Mart to see the light, they will have the clout to convince Giomarrato change their ways.  This is a classic tactic for the union and they need your help.  Giumarra might not listen to consumers, but Wal Mart just might.  Giumarra will be forced to listen to Wal Mart or they will risk losing one of their biggest retailers.

On October 16, the UFW took action:

15-to-20 UFW and other labor rights groups gathered at Giumarra headquarters Friday in Edison to hand-deliver the worker’s rights petition

Nature’s Partner is the label that Giumarra uses to sell their grapes, and when I asked the union what the one thing that anyone in the country can do to help their cause, they responded, “visit the Nature’s Partner websiteand make a comment on how they believe workers should be treated.”  Don’t hesitate to let Wal Mart know of your concerns as well.