Last year, the United Farm Workers (UFW) responded to the conservative charge that immigrants were “stealing” jobs from United States citizens. The UFW and many other groups always argued that immigrants were taking jobs that others did not want. They started the “Take Our Jobs” campaign, a campaign which dared “Americans” to apply for and take the jobs of many farm workers. This justification for immigration, that Mexicans do the dirty jobs that nobody wants, has tended to rub me the wrong way. As one of the Original People of this hemisphere, I do not believe that we constantly need to justify our presence. Our survival of the American Holocaust is, for me, justification enough.

Nevertheless, I understand that many groups concerned with practical concerns, such as working conditions, need practical arguments to move their agendas forward. Even more importantly, the UFW’s challenge seems to have been effective in its premise. After a few months of running this campaign, with spots on numerous national programs, less than ten “Americans” had applied. Many dismissed the information as bias or unreliable or perhaps just a media stunt with no practical applications.

In June, the state of Georgia made national headlines, because of its shortage of farmworkers. The state, after having passed extreme anti-migrant laws, has been unable to fill 11,000 agricultural jobs. The shortage is so extreme that fruits and vegetables are becoming over ripe right on the vines. The state decided to experiment by attempting to fill the empty positions with probationers. The experiment seems to be failing.

Ray Henry of the Associated Press reports, “LESLIE, Ga. — It’s 3:25 p.m. in a dusty cucumber field in south Georgia. A knot of criminal offenders who spent seven hours in the sun harvesting buckets of vegetables by hand have decided they’re calling it quits — exactly as crew leader Benito Mendez predicted in the morning…On the first two days, all the probationers quit by mid-afternoon…Those guys out here weren’t out there 30 minutes and they got the bucket and just threw them in the air and say, ‘Bonk this, I ain’t with this, I can’t do this,’ said Jermond Powell, a 33-year-old probationer. ‘They just left, took off across the field walking.’”

The UFW’s argument seems to be more tangible now that probationers, a group who is required to work by their agreement with the court, are unwilling to take this particular job, risking a return to jail if they are unable to find other employment.

Even so, the UFW still encounters resistance to laws which promote a more humane work environment for both unionized and non-unionized farm workers. UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez released a statement on July 13. “(at ranches where there is no union contract) the dozen workers labored who died from the heat since 2005, when the heat regulation was issued. Farm workers sacrificed so much for SB 104, the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, to make it a little easier for them to win union contracts.” Unfortunately, the law was vetoed by the California governor.

Even so, there have been recent successes in protecting the farm workers from extreme conditions. Earlier this year, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, reinstated certain wage protections for farm workers which had been cut by the Bush administration.

I try to give thanks as often as I can for the food on our table and the people that have helped to put it there.

Greetings!

L. A. DISTRICT ATTORNEY SETTLES CASE
AGAINST NATIVO LOPEZ

By: Alexis Calvo

A settlement not totally to the liking of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office was finally reached after twenty-four months of attempting to bring to trial the case against Nativo Lopez, National President of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) and the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana. Originally charging Lopez with eight felony counts of voter fraud and perjury in June 2009, District Attorney Steve Cooley finally conceded to eliminate seven counts and stand on one count of voter registration fraud, a felony wobblier, which will be reduced to a misdemeanor and expunged from the record (constituting a dismissal) after twelve months assuming Lopez complies with probation conditions of 400 community service hours.

The original case was filed by the district attorney in June 2009 with four felony charges and subsequently amended to include four additional felony counts for a total of eight. After one year the D.A. was unable to bring the case to a preliminary hearing, and actually came close to losing the case, Commissioner Kristi Lousteau, the first judge to hear the matter, was overheard to say by the eleventh month of the case. The D.A. then moved to convene the Los Angeles County Grand Jury to obtain an indictment, which it successfully did in June 2010. One year later, after three different judges ordered Lopez to be examined by court-ordered psychiatrists on six separate occasions and three incarcerations lasting from four hours to five days, including two instances of strict solitary confinement, and having been before six superior court judges, the case was finally set for trial on June 22nd before Superior Court Judge William Ryan.

Lopez sought to have private counsel engaged after defending the case himself for most of the two years with no previous legal court experience. However, two judges denied him the right to legal counsel of his choice and imposed on him the public defender over his repeated objections on the record. Judges George G. Lomeli and Patricia Schnegg also denied him additional time for private counsel to prepare for a trial.

With literally one day to prepare for a trial, review all discovery documents, interview prospective witnesses, and prepare pre-trial motions, the defense was inclined to offer a settlement in the interest of the defendant. At the end of the day, the district attorney’s office was motivated to drop seven felony counts, not seek any jail time, and settle for a plea on the one felony charge (defined as a wobblier – could be filed as a felony or a misdemeanor), which it conceded would be reduced to a misdemeanor and ultimately dismissed from the record once Lopez completes the community service hours. On the other hand, conviction of the eight felony counts was the equivalent of a 48-year prison sentence.

Lopez never conceded that he had not taken up residence in his Boyle Heights office during the height of the historic immigrants’ rights marches of 2006 thru 2008, the period under investigation by the D.A.’s office. Cooley conceded that Lopez had been registered to vote in only one location, not two, and that he voted only once in each of the elections – never in two jurisdictions and never more than once. To the prosecutor’s insistence that Lopez verbalize a plea of guilty to the one count, Lopez responded, “a plea of guilty has been entered because it is in my interest to do so based on the plea agreement reached with the district attorney’s office.” Judge Ryan immediately found this acceptable and so ordered.

Lopez was quoted as declaring, “I am happy to put this behind me, and ironically glad that District Attorney Steve Cooley brought the charges against me. Over the past two years I was forced to study the law, the judicial system, the common law, courtroom decorum and procedure, and the Uniform Commercial Code, like never before. Cooley put me on a course of study that I would not have otherwise pursued. With this knowledge I am now positioned to help literally tens of thousands of others to work their way through the legal system. I now intend to continue a serious study of law and commercial remedies for the layperson. I have turned lemons into lemonade.”

The offenses for which Lopez was charged are actually extremely common. The most common occurrences of an individual registering to vote in a domicile where he does not live 100 percent of the time are college students living and studying elsewhere, but maintaining their voter registration address in the residence of their parents; business-persons who have a business address and a residence address elsewhere; and individuals who frequently travel and have multiple residences. Many people have made the observation that the prosecution by the D.A.’s office against Lopez was politically motivated and heavy-handed in terms of the multiple felony charges.

Dissimilar to other public officials charged with criminal offenses in the recent past, Lopez was not accused of texting pornographic photos of himself to women, soliciting sex from prostitutes, laundering money, trafficking arms, abusing drugs or alcohol, attempting to bribe a government official or soliciting a bribe for himself, sexual assault on a women, or other such felonious crime. He was accused of registering to vote from his office domicile and voting from that address and allegedly residing elsewhere – and because of that he received the wrath of Cooley’s office with eight felony charges.

Lopez was actually born in Boyle Heights and has maintained offices in East Los Angeles since the 1970s with the numerous organizations with which he has been affiliated over the past forty years, including the Center of Autonomous Social Action (CASA), Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, and the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA). He has participated in multiple electoral and political campaigns throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan region, which have resulted in the election of many public officials, both Latino and non-Latino. His most prominent and recent activities in the region were the historic immigrants’ rights marches and economic boycotts.

ORIGIN OF THE CHARGES

The origin of the charges against Nativo Lopez stemmed from an internal dispute within the Green Party Los Angeles County Council. Old guard conservative leadership led by Michael Feinstein lost their power sway to a reform slate, which came to prominence in the primary elections of June 2006. Lopez represented the Senate District 22 as a county party delegate, encompassing the cities of Boyle Heights, Maywood, and parts of the city of Los Angeles, and immediately became a target of harassment, surveillance, and spying by the Feinstein faction. Feinstein’s group refused to concede the reins of leadership to the reformers and launched attacks against a number of its leaders, including Lopez.

Court documents revealed that the source of the original complaint to the California Secretary of State’s Office, and subsequently to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, was the Feinstein cohorts. This party faction worked with state and county police agencies to run Lopez out of the Green Party. Lopez actually ceased any party activities in 2008 after concluding with other party activists that this party could not be a viable alternative to disaffected Democratic and independent Latino voters. State and county detectives and investigators conducted surveillance against Lopez in 2008 and 2009, with the connivance and cooperation of the Feinstein faction, prior to filing the criminal charges in June 2009. “Feinstein and his allies were not interested in a darker hue of green for the Green Party by way of recruiting thousands of new adherents of color to the party as we had intended and repeatedly proposed,” stated Lopez. “And the party has remained a miniature cult under the control of white party activists in the face of a colored tsunami of demographic shift throughout California, but especially in the Los Angeles metropolitan region,” he concluded.

ONLY REGRETS

At the conclusion of the case, Lopez expressed that, “I only regret that we did not have the opportunity to challenge the manner in which the county grand jury is convened by the district attorney’s office, which truly does not reflect the racial and ethnic composition of the surrounding community of Los Angeles – of the accused; and that we were not permitted the time to challenge the selective prosecution trajectory of the D.A.’s office over the years, which has been oriented against persons of color.”

He also expressed his deep gratitude to the many people that stood by him on some fifteen court appearances, and contributed to his defense, especially the hard-working immigrant workers who took days off from work to accompany him to the court.

*Reproduction of this article is permitted. Please credit the author.

In economic terms, the wages of many Americans working in the private sector represent a “market failure” of massive proportions. Even the most devout of free-marketeers — economists like Alan Greenspan and the late Milton Friedman — agree that it’s appropriate and necessary for government to intervene in the case of those failures (they believe it’s the only time such “meddling” is appropriate)…But a common fallacy is that wages are determined by market forces. They’re not, for a variety of reasons that require more explanation than space permits. I’ll focus on two: what economists call “information asymmetries” and coercion. Both are anathema to a functional free market, and both exist today, in abundance, in the American workplace.

I like original arguments, and I critique only to strengthen these arguments. The idea that coercion is used in the negotiation of labor is very insightful. Brilliant. Coercion is economic philosophy, but the practical theory is found in contract law. Of course, I have always known of the disadvantage of having rent on your back when you need a job, but I had never thought to consider it through the prism of contract law, or economic philosophy as you seem to do here. From the little that I know about contract law, this could be called “duress” in certain circumstances. The worker has to eat and keep shelter over his head, resulting in a great amount of duress should he not accept the offer to work. A contract signed under duress is often voidable. This duress argument might not apply if there are other market alternatives to the choice of employment. However, in the grand scheme of things, this duress argument might provide a greater theoretical framework for socializing all basic needs, rather than as an argument as to the efficacy of labor unions. So the worker is under duress from his need to eat? How does a labor union remove the existing duress?

As far as the asymmetrical information argument…I guess I have a couple of thoughts. On the one hand, I don’t know that workers are really that uninformed about their own product (labor). I understand that jornaleros (day laboreres) here in Houston, mostly charge $80 per day, sometimes $50 under specfic circumstances. It is true that many workers of all stripes are unaware of their rights, but I think most understand what price their labor will fetch. Perhaps if you detailed out the asymmetrical information argument and applied it specifically to worker’s rights (as opposed to only the price for labor) I might be more agreeable.

On the otherhand, the mortgage market collapse nakedly showed what an asymetry of information could do to collapse markets. A pool of overly informed suppliers of mortgages sold to a dismally uninformed pool of buyers (borrowers). The borrower’s lack of familiarity with product features led to the collapse of the market. The analogy is not exact, but perhaps still useful. In the mortgage market, the buyers were uninformed. In the labor market, the seller (of labor) is uniformed. Perhaps providing some examples in which uniformed sellers have collapsed market might bolster your argument.

I reiterate that your take on duress in the sale of labor, viewed through the prism of economic philosophy, is one that I won’t soon forget. I hope to develop the view through the practical applicaion of contract law.

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.