Veteran farmworker activist Yolanda Chacón-Serna leads the 24-day march to expand California farmworker's voting rights into Visalia. All photos by David Bacon.
Lourdes Cardenas has worked the fields in the San Joaquin Valley for more than 20 years. "I've worked in all the crops - grapes, cherries, peaches, nectarines. I'm marching because I want representation and to be respected," she said. The respect she and other farmworkers seek is not only from their employers, but also from Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Cardenas and members of the United Farm Workers (UFW) are supporting a proposed law to make it much more difficult for growers to use workers' fear against them in unionization votes. Their proposal would extend to farmworkers the right to vote at home instead of in the fields, among other protections.
Cardenas said that change would mean they would "not be intimidated by the bosses because we want a union. If we have to vote in front of them, they intimidate us, make us fear they'll fire or suspend us." According to the California Poor People's Campaign, "AB 2183 would give more choices to farmworkers so they can vote free from intimidation - in secret, whenever and wherever they feel safe."
California legislators have agreed. Fifty signed on as sponsors of AB 2183, the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, authored by Assemblymember Mark Stone (D- Santa Cruz). It passed the State Assembly on May 25 by a wide margin, and was sent to the Senate floor on August 11, where its passage is virtually certain.
Newsom, however, has not made a commitment to sign it. A march to gain the governor's signature began in Delano on August 3. Twenty-six people made a commitment to walk for 24 days up the San Joaquin Valley, all the way to Newsom's Sacramento office. Each day marchers and supporters cover between 9 and 18 miles. UFW Secretary Treasurer Armando Elenes even counts the steps in a program on his cellphone. On the fifth day it recorded 14,000 paces.
A priest holds a short service with the marchers early in the morning before they start walking.
In August, the heat in the San Joaquin Valley is intense. "As we're walking in temperatures over 100 degrees," says UFW President Teresa Romero, "I look to my right and I see farmworkers working. That's what they do every day, day in and day out. They can't do what we just did. When we get tired we can take a 10-minute break whenever we feel like it."
Newsom vetoed a similar bill last year. His rejection of the legislative mandate came after the union had campaigned for him in his successful effort to defeat a recall.
Last year, when Romero asked to meet with Newsom to discuss the voting proposal, he refused. In fact, he vetoed that bill the day after a similar march began, asking him to sign it. The union was so outraged it then marched from the swanky French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley wine country, where Newsom had held a controversial fundraiser, to his PlumpJack vineyard.
After a short service, marchers who will walk all 24 days think about the reasons for walking to Sacramento. From left: UFW march captain Antonio Cortez, farmworker Lourdes Cardenas, UFW President Teresa Romero, unidentified marcher.
Once again, "we're at the last step, which is his signature," Romero said. "We're trying to paint a picture for him of what farmworkers go through - the intimidation, the threats, losing their jobs. We asked one worker to make a video about it, and she said, 'No, I can't. If my employer sees it he'll fire me.' We're trying to relay that to the governor."
Lourdes Cardenas described how one grower created that fear. "When I was working in the peaches once, some friends came to work with union leaflets," she remembers. She helped hand them out. "My foreman said, 'There's no more work for you.' I never was able to work with him again. He wanted to scare the other people in the crew by what he did to me."
A young marcher comes out with his family before going to the first day of school in Farmersville.
One of the starkest examples of worker intimidation occurred in 2013, when one of the world's largest peach and grape growers, Gerawan Farming, was preparing for a vote to get rid of its obligation to negotiate a contract with the United Farm Workers. The company's effort began by sending foremen and anti-union workers into the orchards and grape rows, demanding that pickers sign a petition against the union. According to a complaint by the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), supervisor Sonia Martinez "went row by row and provided the employees in her crew with the signature sheet."
Supervisors then shut down work entirely, blocked entry to the fields and packing sheds, and handed out the petitions and demanded that workers sign. Agustin Rodriguez, a UFW supporter, told Capital & Main that "they stopped whole crews because of their union activity.
One worker, Jose Dolores, explained, "People were afraid they'd be fired if they supported the union. I heard it all the time. 'If I do that they'll fire me.'" According to another UFW supporter, Severino Salas, "Some of the pro-company workers said that if the company had to sign a contract with the union, it would tear out the grapevines or trees. This threat was coming from the foremen, but they would get other workers to say it."
On Nov. 5 of that year workers then cast ballots in an election held by the ALRB, in which they had to choose if they were for or against the union. Voting was conducted in the same fields where the intimidation had taken place. When the votes were finally counted, the union lost. Workers no longer had the right to negotiate a union contract.
California's labor law for farmworkers, the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, prohibits the use of intimidation. Decades of ALRB hearings, however, amply demonstrate that growers' use of fear to prevent unionization is widespread. Yet the ALRB almost invariably conducts union elections in the growers' fields, where the fear is often intense.
Workers' immigration status can increase the fear. According to UFW President Teresa Romero, "The majority of farmworkers are undocumented. When growers see them coming to vote, workers know there will be repercussions." She adds that when workers are targeted for their union support, it can affect whole families. "Often wives, husbands, brothers, sisters all work for the same farm," she explains.
UFW President Teresa Romero leads the march as it heads out of Farmersville on the way to Visalia, on the sixth day of the march.
March captain Antonio Cortez says that even if the law goes into effect, the union will have to educate thousands of workers about the new system for voting. The march itself is part of that process. Word spreads as laborers see the marchers passing the fields where they're working, or hear about it from friends.
Cortez believes that the law can potentially inspire a wave of farmworker elections California hasn't seen since the 1970s. "I think there are two places with a lot of organizing potential," he explains. "In crops like the strawberries on the coast, the wages are very low, just the minimum, and workers have no benefits. They have very little to lose there. And in crops like the wine grapes, the wages are higher, but the cost of living in liberal areas like Sonoma County is so high that workers can't survive."
The campaign for the law can also lead to greater community support for worker organizing, which would help convince growers to sign contracts when workers win elections. "This march is grassroots organizing," Romero says. "It's not about money. It's not about lobbying. It's about the people who are marching here today and their rights. It's about respect."
"I hope the governor is listening," Cardenas says. "We deserve this law."
As a child, Yolanda Chacón-Serna was part of the historic 1966 farmworker march to Sacramento led by Cesar Chavez.
Paul Boyer, mayor of Farmersville, marches with the workers as the march leaves town.
Lourdes Cardenas, a lifelong farmworker, leads one of the most frequent chants shouted by marchers to keep spirits up: "¡Newsom, escucha, estamos en la lucha!" ("Newsom, listen, we're ready to fight!") and "Que queremos? ¡Que se firme la ley!" ("What do we want? That he signs the bill!")
One supporter brings his children and a sign linking farmworkers' efforts to win healthy living and working conditions with their rights to vote for a union.
Miguel Trujillo carries the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Catholic symbol for the struggle of the poor. FIRST PLACE AWARD 64th annual Southern California Journalism Awards from the Los Angeles Press Club for General News (Online): "TULARE COUNTY'S HOMELESS TO BE THROWN OFF THEIR LEVEE SANCTUARY" Capital & Main, 2/16/21 https://capitalandmain.com/tulares-homeless-to-be-thrown-off-their-levee-sanctuary-0216
Judges' comment: Phenomenal people-centric story rich with story arcs and data.
"This story by David Bacon chronicled the effort by the Tulare County sheriff to evict unhoused people living on the Tule River near Porterville. The majority of this unhoused population are people of color residing in a region whose largest city, Fresno, has long been plagued by homelessness and poverty. Partly as a result of the story, the river dwellers sued the county, and the sheriff had to defend his actions publicly. Although the community leader, Chendo, was arrested, the sheriff had to release him, and he and his partner Josefina are still living in a trailer on the riverbank. Co-published by Visalia Times Delta." - Arlan Tariq in Medium MORE THAN A WALL / MAS QUE UN MURO
More Than a Wall / Mas que Un Muro explores the many aspects of the border region through photographs taken by David Bacon over a period of 30 years. These photographs trace the changes in the border wall itself, and the social movements in border communities, factories and fields. This bilingual book provides a reality check, to allow us to see the border region as its people, with their own history of movements for rights and equality, and develop an alternative vision in which the border can be a region where people can live and work in solidarity with each other. - Gaspar Rivera-Salgado
David Bacon has given us, through his beautiful portraits, the plight of the American migrant worker, and the fierce spirit of those who provide and bring to us comfort and sustenance. -- Lila Downs
- a book of photographs by David Bacon and oral histories created during 30 years of covering the people and social movements of the Mexico/U.S. border - a complex, richly textured documentation of a world in newspaper headlines daily, but whose reality, as it's lived by border residents, is virtually invisible. - 440 pages - 354 duotone black-and-white photographs - a dozen oral histories - incisive journalism and analysis by David Bacon, Don Bartletti, Luis Escala, Guillermo Alonso and Alberto del Castillo. - completely bilingual in English and Spanish - published by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte with support from the UCLA Institute for Labor Research and Education and the Center for Mexican Studies, the Werner Kohlstamm Family Fund, and the Green Library at Stanford University
"The "border" is just a line. It's the people who matter - their relationships with or without or across that line. The book helps us feel the impact of the border on people living there, and helps us figure out how we talk to each other about it. The germ of the discussion are these wonderful and eye-opening pictures, and the voices that help us understand what these pictures mean." - JoAnn Intili, director, The Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund Letters and Politics - May 19, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvs6SyXsM-4 Three Decades of Photographing The Border & Border Communities Host Mitch Jeserich interviews David Bacon, a photojournalist, author, broadcaster and former labor organizer. He has reported on immigrant and labor issues for decades. His latest book, More Than A Wall, is a collection of his photographs of the border and border communities spanning three decades. IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH/EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE
Photographs by David Bacon
Chandler Museum 300 S. Chandler Village Drive Chandler, AZ 85226 June 12, 2022 – August 28, 2022
La Quinta Museum 77885 Avenida Montezuma La Quinta, CA 92253 January 8, 2023 – April 16, 2023
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
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
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 / 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
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
