the supreme court's real target - farmworker organizing rights

 

WHO'S "TAKING" FROM WHOM? The Supreme Court's Real Target - Farmworkers' Organizing Rights By David Bacon The Nation, 7/2/21 https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/cedar-point-organizing-labor/ https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2021/07/whos-taking-from-whom.html Two farmworkers, who have left their jobs to work as organizers for the United Farm Workers, hold a meeting at lunchtime in a crew of strawberry pickers.  They ask the workers what wage they think is fair for the work they do, and write the answers on a big sheet of butcher paper.  This was part of the process of formulating the demands of the workers for the UFW organizing drive in the strawberry industry.   1997 OAKLAND, CA. Most of the media coverage of the recent Supreme Court decision about the farmworker access rule took for granted the way growers, and the court, defined this regulation.  Jess Bravin in the Wall Street Journal called it "a regulation giving union organizers the right to visit farmworkers."  The first line of the rightwing majority's opinion called it "A California regulation [which] grants labor organizations a 'right to take access' to an agricultural employer's property." The court, and the growers, deliberately confuse the mechanism of the rule with rights, calling it a right of organizers or organizations.  It is not.  The right the rule implements is simple.  When workers are protesting and organizing a union in the fields, they have a right to talk to union representatives at work.  It's a right of workers, rather than a right of union representatives.  Rolling back this right, and the ability of farmworkers to organize against their endemic poverty, is the main target of the Supreme Court's attack. At Cedar Point Nursery, the grower that filed the case heard by the court, the stakes were clear.  Cedar Point is a nursery growing rootstock for commercial strawberry growers in Dorris, a remote town in northern California near the Oregon border.  Hundreds of workers migrate here from their homes in central and southern California every year to harvest, trim and pack the plants.   In 2015 Cedar Point laborers walked out to protest conditions that included, according to worker Jessica Rodriguez, low wages, dirty bathrooms, and harassment from supervisors.  They called the United Farm Workers, which sent organizers and implemented the access rule to talk with them on the property. The strike lasted for just a day, and after the strikers returned to their jobs, the organizing effort fizzled out.  No election was ever held to begin the process of trying to get a contract. What happened at Cedar Point is not unusual.  The following spring in McFarland, in the densely farmed San Joaquin Valley, hundreds of workers struck the blueberry fields of Gourmet Trading over similar issues.  Support for the organizing was overwhelming.  They called the UFW after they'd struck.  Once they returned to work the union filed for access, and workers held meetings after work at the ranch.  They voted for the union a few days later, and today they work under a union contract. In 1996, during a huge campaign to organize the strawberry industry in Watsonville, UFW organizers visited picking crews in dozens of fields. They taped butcher paper on the walls of the portapotties during lunchtime meetings.  Strawberry workers wrote down their demands for raising some of the lowest wages in agriculture, and planned marches to the company offices to announce them. In all these cases the access rule provided a way for workers to understand the organizing process and get help with it.  Farmworkers need this because of the nature of the work.  They are often migrants, working in a harvest in one area of California although they live in another.  Cedar Point's workers lived hundreds of miles from Dorris, and during the work season slept in motel rooms and temporary housing.  At Gourmet Trading some pickers traveled an hour or more to get to the field every day.  Those distances make it hard-and sometimes impossible-for people to meet with union organizers at home.

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Online Interviews and Presentations   Exploitation or Dignity - What Future for Farmworkers UCLA Latin American Institute Based on a new report by the Oakland Institute, journalist and photographer David Bacon documents the systematic abuse of workers in the H-2A program and its impact on the resident farmworker communities, confronted with a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKa2lHJXMs   Organizing during COVID, the intrinsic value of the people who grow our food Sylvia Richardson - Latin Waves Media How community and union organizers came together to get rights for farm workers during COVID, and how surviving COVID has literally been an act of resistance. https://latinwavesmedia.com/wordpress/organizing-during-covid-the-intrinsic-value-of-the-people-who-grow-our-food/   Report Details Slavery-Like Conditions For Immigrant Guest Workers Rising Up With Sonali Kohatkar https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/report-details-slavery-conditions-immigrant-guest-workers The Right to Remain http://www.franknews.us/interviews/415/the-right-to-remain Beware of Pity http://www.franknews.us/interviews/525/beware-of-pity En Español   Ruben Luengas - #EnContacto Hablamos con David Bacon de los migrantes y la situación de México frente a los Estados Unidos por ser el principal país de llegada a la frontera de ese país. https://rubenluengas.com/2021/03/video-mexico-estados-unidos-migracion-y-suenos-rotos-encontacto/ Jornaleros agrícolas en EEUU en condiciones más graves por Covid-19: David Bacon SomosMas99 con Agustin Galo Samario https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWQSvM9s1lw "Los fotógrafos tomamos partido" Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.html David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agrícola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia http://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0038-18   Online Photography Exhibitions   Documentary Matters -  View from the US  Social Documentary Network Four SDN photographers explore themes of racial justice, migration, and #MeToo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWl-uENA7SQ&t=1641s   There's More Work to be Done Housing Assistance Council and National Endowment for the Arts This exhibition documents the work and impact of the struggle for equitable and affordable housing in rural America, inspired by the work of George “Elfie” Ballis. https://www.thereismoreworktobedone.com/david-bacon   Dark Eyes A beautiful song by Lila Downs honoring essential workers, accompanied by photographs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdC2gE3SNWw A video about the Social Justice Photography of David Bacon: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14TvAj5nS08ENzWhw3Oxra4LMNKJCLF4z/view   WORK AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: The David Bacon Archive exhibition at Stanford Libraries https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bacon/browse Exhibited throughout the pandemic in the Cecil H. Green Library at Stanford. The online exhibition (https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bacon), which includes additional content not included in the physical show, is accessible to everyone, and is part of an accessible digital spotlight collection that includes significant images from this body of work. For a catalog: (https://web.stanford.edu/dept/spec_coll/NonVendorPubOrderform2017.pdf)   IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH Online Exhibit Los Altos History Museum https://www.losaltoshistory.org/exhibits/in-the-fields-of-the-north/ VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION - IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH History Museum of Tijuana RECORRIDO VIRTUAL DE LA EXPOSICIÓN - EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE Museo de Historia de Tijuana https://www.facebook.com/542258639265202/videos/659536991515786   The exhibitions in the following list were scheduled before the current COVID-19 crisis.  Public gatherings are now being rescheduled. IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE October 24 - December 19, 2021 Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, KS MORE THAN A WALL - THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF THE BORDER Spring, 2022 San Francisco Public Library DEPORTATIONS Rescheduled for a date when the gallery reopens Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago   In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte Photographs and text by David Bacon University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte 302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9” paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.) order the book on the UC Press website: ucpress.edu/9780520296077 use source code  16M4197  at checkout, receive a 30% discount En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF: https://www.colef.mx Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte - click here   THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com Books by David Bacon The Right to Stay Home:  How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration  (Beacon Press, 2013) http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328 Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants  (Beacon Press, 2008) Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008 http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006) https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801473074/communities-without-borders/#bookTabs=1 The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520244726/the-children-of-nafta En Español:   EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA  (Critica - Planeta de Libros) http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo) http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html For more articles and images, see  http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums

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