Saturday, December 10, 2022

Turkey continues to attack Iraq

MEHR NEWS AGENCY reports the Turkish government has again bohmbed northern Iraq, Duhok Province specifically, and reminds that it has "established 58 military bases" in the KRG over the last "two and a half years."

International powers, especially the UN, the US and the EU, should take a stand against Turkey's reckless attacks in Iraq and Syria. They should not be complicit in the war crimes carried out by the Turkish Republic.#NoFlyZone4RojavaNow https://t.co/62mmVcLYRH
— Roni (@Roni21473434) December 11, 2022

It was the establishment of a No-Fly-Zone over Northern Iraq/Bashur that protected the Kurds against the Ba’ath regime & dictator Saddam Hussein. A similar #NoFlyZone4RojavaNow is needed to protect the most vulnerable communities in Northern & Eastern Syria against Turkey! pic.twitter.com/mlhtTUK91A
— Koban (@Rubar91568968) December 10, 2022

International powers, especially the UN, the US and the EU, should take a stand against Turkey's reckless attacks in Iraq and Syria. They should not be complicit in the war crimes carried out by the Turkish Republic.#NoFlyZone4RojavaNow pic.twitter.com/tstbWSMTVy
— Rêvaz Ebdî (@Revazebdi) December 10, 2022

The leaders of Syria, Iraq and Kurdistan have no dignity or honor for allowing Turkey to attack their land. They don't deserve to be in leadership position.
— Maryam B.M (@Maryam9576) December 11, 2022

Staying focused on the Kurdistan, Amberin Zamin (AL-MONITOR) reports:

With its aura of relative calm and Western-friendly vibes, Iraqi Kurdistan was for decades hailed as the other Iraq. Today, Iraqi Kurdistan is under assault. Since early this year, Iran has carried out a series of cross-border missile and drone attacks against the Kurdish region, targeting its capital, Erbil, and more recently Iranian-Kurdish militias, which Tehran blames for the mass protests that have rocked the country since the Sept. 16 death in police custody of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini. Dozens of people including women and children have died in the strikes, which prompted at least one international carrier to temporarily halt service to Erbil. Iran is now threatening a ground invasion should the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) continue to ignore its demands to disarm and intern those groups, something Iraqi Kurdish officials say is impossible for them to do.

Faced with such adversity, Kurdish leaders ought to be closing ranks. Instead, they are at each other’s throats, spinning a web of intrigue that would make Machiavelli blush.

The squabbles have left the region’s estimated five million Kurds ever more disaffected as they struggle to make ends meet, with a steady stream risking their lives to get to Europe through illegal means.

Bestoon Saied, a vendor in Sulaimaniyah’s main bazaar, summed up the feelings aired in multiple street interviews in three cities, telling Al-Monitor, “I don’t believe in any of the parties, none of them. They are all corrupt.”

Tensions took a bloody turn when Hawkar Jaff, a senior intelligence officer, was blown up on Oct. 7 by a bomb planted in his car in Erbil. The murder prompted warnings of a return to the fratricidal war that raged between the region’s two main political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and its weaker rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), in the early 1990s.

“I hope it’s an aberration but I think the crisis could escalate. Hawkar’s killing could be the first domino,” said Bilal Wahab, Nathan and Esther K. Wagner fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

While such fears may sound exaggerated, there is little doubt that the crisis is among the worst and most intractable in recent years. For one, it weakens the Iraqi Kurds vis-a-vis newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's government, with which they are tentatively hopeful of negotiating a new oil and gas law and their share of the Iraqi budget.

In other news out of Iraq, Baghdad's hosting its annual international book fair. THE NATIONAL has a photo essay of the event.

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ill harvest: why being a farmworker is a health risk

ILL HARVEST
WHY BEING A FARMWORKER IS A HEALTH RISK
Both the nature of the work and flaws in the support system cause injuries and illness.
By David Bacon
Capital and Main, 12/9/22
https://capitalandmain.com/why-being-a-farmworker-is-a-health-risk
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2022/12/why-being-farmworker-is-health-risk.html

A sign in the dirt of a cabbage field warns of the dangers of the pesticides used on the crops. All photos by David Bacon

In the summer of 2008 Andres Cruz got a call from a crew of Triqui workers picking peas near Greenfield, a farmworker town in California's Salinas Valley. They told him they were on strike, and because he's a leader in their community, they asked him for help. Twenty-five pickers had been fired, they said.

"They told me the labor contractor fired them because they were working on a piece rate and weren't picking fast enough," recalls Cruz, who himself works as a broccoli cutter. Pickers have to use their thumbnails to cut the pod from the vine. "Their nails were tearing off because of this. They tried to wrap up their hands and keep working, but they couldn't work as fast, and the foreman wouldn't listen to them."

Triquis are Indigenous people from small villages in the hills of Oaxaca, Mexico, speaking a language that predates European colonization by centuries. Thousands have migrated to the U.S. in search of work, and they have a prominent presence in Greenfield. Almost all work in the fields, and their families in Mexico depend for survival on remittances sent back from their wages.

Cruz and organizers for the United Farm Workers met with the Triqui pickers. They explained they had the right to complain to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, the state agency responsible for enforcing laws pertaining to workplace safety, and could get treatment and workers compensation pay. Cruz said the landowner called the sheriff, however, who confronted the workers and organizers at the field.

"When the contractor saw the union was there," Cruz says, "he agreed to let the fired people go back to work. I told them they could get time off so their hands could heal, but they said they couldn't afford to lose a day of work. So they went back."

Andres Cruz with his wife Catalina and their son.

Their work stoppage was powerful enough to win reinstatement for those terminated. But the pressure of families in Mexico who need remittances, and the low wages paid for farm work, was a potent combination. Even when the pickers learned about their legal rights to medical treatment and some degree of compensation, the need to keep working overrode their ability to exercise those rights.

Multiple studies document the high rate of illness and injury for field laborers. According to Farmworker Justice, a Washington advocacy group, "Agricultural injuries and illnesses take many forms from falls, cuts, and lifting injuries to chemical exposures, vehicle and machinery accidents, and even chronic pain associated with repetitive movement. ... These conditions disproportionately affect migrant and seasonal farmworkers ... ."

The U.S. Department of Labor says that in 2020 589 farmworkers died at work. Official sources have historically undercounted workplace illness and injuries, however. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that there were 32,100 illnesses and injuries among U.S. farmworkers in 2011. But it left out workers employed by labor contractors (in California 55% of the farmworker workforce) and didn't account for nonreported cases. When health economists at the University of California, Davis reexamined the data, "the estimated number of job-related injuries and illnesses experienced by agricultural workers ... rises to 143,436," their study concluded.

Surveys of farmworker health are rare. According to a 1998 California farm survey of occupational injuries and hazards in Monterey and Fresno counties, "29% of the workers reported occupational injuries associated with farm work, farm equipment or transportation. Among the injured workers, 20% reported multiple incidents, [and] 27% missed at least one day of work ... ." Less than half got any medical care.

Farmworkers in California have important legal protections for their safety and health at work, won through decades of advocacy. The state has a workers compensation system that should guarantee treatment and some replacement wages for those who do get sick or injured on the job. But according to Garrett Brown, who spent 18 years as a field inspector for Cal/OSHA, and two as the special assistant to the agency's director, "the power imbalance between workers and employers in agriculture is much greater than almost any other industry. That determines what happens to farmworkers in real life."

Cruz's wife, Catalina, had difficulty using the workers comp system when she was hit by a ladder on a machine that packs broccoli in the field. Although the pain was enough to make her cry, she didn't tell the foreman right away and kept working. "I was afraid to lose pay, or that I might get fired," she recalls. Finally, when the pain was too much, she went to the emergency room at the local hospital, which sent her to a community clinic. "The doctor told me I could go back to work the next day. And when I asked about workers compensation, the foreman said they weren't responsible because I'd waited two days to tell them."

Eliadora Diaz, a Mixtec immigrant from Oaxaca, picks strawberries with her sister Guillermina.

Juvenal Solano, senior community organizer for the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, says that Catalina Cruz's experience is common because companies pay less for workers compensation insurance if workers don't make claims. "They tell workers that if they notify the company a day or two after an injury they'll be disciplined," he explains. "But when you're working your body is warmer and in that moment you don't always feel as much pain. Then, if you feel it later and complain, the foreman says he'll give you a warning because you didn't report it right away. So the worker keeps on working."

Getting released from work is particularly difficult for pregnant women. "Indigenous women often lose their babies in the first two or three months," Solano charges. "In the strawberries women have to work bent over double all day, and lift heavy boxes every few minutes. That can cause injuries even without being pregnant, but once women are 3 or 4 months along, it's dangerous. If they ask for disability benefits so they can stop working, a doctor who thinks working in the field is like working in an office often tells them that pregnancy isn't a disability. Some women, when they're denied benefits, decide to stop working anyway. But most can't survive economically if they don't work."

Among strawberry pickers, back pain and injury is endemic, but going to the doctor usually means taking off work and making an advance appointment. "If the pain is intense they can't wait, so they go to a solvador [a traditional massage therapist] recommended by someone in the community," he explains. "Those who know their rights might make a report and open a case, but most don't. They take pills and keep working."

Lauro Barajas, regional director in Salinas for the United Farm Workers, emphasizes that "in the strawberries people have to work bent double, year after year. After 15 or 20 years it's clear that the resulting injuries are from work. But when workers complain they're sent to the company's doctor who often sends them back to work right away. The doctors are almost worse than the foremen. And if a worker makes a claim for workers compensation, the company has lawyers, a human resource department, supervisors and doctors. How can one farmworker overcome all of that?"

Anne Katten, legislative advocate for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and director of its pesticide and worker safety project, agrees. "The workers comp system is very bureaucratic and daunting. For anyone with a problem like a back or shoulder injury, it's hard to get diagnosis and treatment. But farm work is seasonal, and those known to have an injury are less likely to be hired for the next season. Most will work with back pain or respiratory problems because they only have a few weeks of work to begin with."

Pesticide exposure is an acute problem for field laborers, who can experience effects ranging from nausea, vomiting and headaches to fainting, seizures and even death. Some pesticides are known causes of cancer, neurological disorders and birth defects, especially from chronic exposure over years of work. Yet despite EPA estimates that 3,000 workers every year suffer from pesticide poisoning, there is no national tracking system for cases.

A strawberry worker picks in a field in Oxnard.

"In Santa Maria I got a call that a boy from Oaxaca was sick," Barajas recalls. "He had just come from work, and I found him lying on the floor in convulsions. That morning he'd started working in a field where pesticides were applied the day before. He began to vomit and couldn't keep working. With no way to leave, he stayed in a car at the edge of the field until work ended that afternoon. I called an ambulance. The company then told the hospital they weren't responsible and the worker would have to pay for his treatment. That happens a lot in pesticide injuries."

For a contested claim like this, a worker can appeal a denial of the workers compensation benefits that should pay for medical expenses and a percentage of lost wages. "You're supposed to be able to get an attorney," Katten says. "But most don't want to take challenging cases where a settlement is uncertain, especially pesticide illnesses. There should be a simpler way for people to get care. The system is very broken."

While the cause of illness in acute poisoning cases can be obvious, it's harder for workers to get recognition for more chronic problems. "I've seen pesticide illness reports," Brown says, "where doctors say workers are just responding to smells or are having psychological reactions. Often there's no thorough analysis of what caused the exposure. In community clinics, where farmworkers are most likely to go for treatment, few staff are able to identify pesticide illnesses. We really need people trained in occupational medicine, and to keep medical histories of what people are exposed to."

That long-term perspective is critical in tracking the impact of pesticide exposure on whole communities. A 2010 UC Davis survey found "an elevated prevalence of indicators of chronic disease, but lack of health care access."

In Oxnard, Solano says the Mixteco community has seen an increase in cancer and birth defects. "When people come to the U.S. their kids born here have autism, and people die of cancer," he explains. "Our home towns in Oaxaca don't have these problems. We don't have studies but we suspect that it's because of the chemicals. Yet people here have to work, and the workers comp system doesn't provide health care access for this."

A crew of Mexican farmworkers plants the rootstock of strawberry plants during the winter in Lompoc.

The pandemic added another layer of hazard for farmworkers. In rural counties the raging virus produced infection rates more than twice those of urban counties. According to a report by the California Institute for Rural Studies, between March and June of 2020 agricultural workers in Monterey County contracted COVID-19 at three times the rate of workers in other industries.

Farmworkers were particularly impacted by the coronavirus, he says, in part because of a breakdown in Cal/OSHA's system of enforcement. According to Garrett Brown, "In the first year there were 9,000 complaints, but for most of 2020 there were very few onsite inspections. There weren't enough inspectors, and many were unwilling or unable to go into the fields. Instead, they sent letters to employers asking them to report any incidents by mail. Farmworkers, however, continued to go to work, and this left them at risk."

Maggie Robbins was an occupational and environmental health specialist for Worksafe, a nonprofit worker advocacy group, during that period. She helped negotiate a new standard for keeping workers safe. As in Washington state (see Capital and Main, "Are Washington's Farmworkers COVID-19 Guinea Pigs") a conflict quickly developed between growers and unions over transportation and housing regulations.

"The basic consideration for all migrant workers was to keep safe distances between people in the motels and labor camps, and on buses taking workers to and from the fields," she explains. "Labor contractors, transport companies and growers all said regulations weren't necessary because compliance would cost them money. But in November the board adopted a standard requiring a six-foot separation. That was a good step, and beyond what other states were requiring. The problem, as always, was the lack of enforcement."

At Primex Farms, a pistachio grower in Wasco in the San Joaquin Valley, 150 workers had tested positive for the virus by July of 2020. When many stopped showing up for work, the company said they were on vacation. By the time it admitted that workers were getting sick, many had brought the virus home to their families. In July Primex employee Maria Hortencia Lopez died and another worker was taken off life support. Yet knowing the risk, some laborers went to work anyway because the company wouldn't pay for time off to quarantine.

The UFW helped Primex workers organize a strike to force the company to comply with the federal law mandating paid leave for COVID victims. Ultimately, Primex agreed to follow the law and to rehire contract workers it had terminated when they protested the lack of COVID protections. But the company then laid off 60 workers while hiring replacements. Primex told the Grist website that it "worked hard to protect and support employees through the crisis."

Andres Ramirez works in a crew of Mexican farmworkers planting the rootstock of strawberry plants during the winter.

Cal/OSHA fined Primex $27,500 following publicity from the strike and demonstrations, including a $5,000 penalty for not reporting two cases. Its labor contractors were also fined.Advocates say such enforcement is ineffective because for large companies such penalties are a small cost of doing business.

"Cal/OSHA had around two hundred inspectors for 9,000 complaints," Brown charges. "The failure of enforcement, not just for COVID but for other work-related problems, meant that more workers got sick and needed greater access to health care. Since farmworkers historically have access problems, their health conditions deteriorated."

During 2020 the Legislature passed bills to meet the crisis, including measures for bilingual campaigns to educate workers, coronavirus sick leave and workers compensation benefits, and improved access to medical care through telehealth services. But the enforcement crisis grew worse. The 84 unfilled positions at Cal/OSHA before the pandemic became 130 by mid-2020. Brown says the number of unfilled field inspector positions is now 60, and will grow by an additional 24 in January.

According to a UCLA study, at the beginning of the pandemic 79% of California's undocumented workers were employed in industries deemed "essential," including agriculture. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 156,000 undocumented people worked in the state's agriculture industry in 2019.

"Immigration reform would therefore make workers healthier as well," Brown says. "In my experience doing field worksite inspections, undocumented workers avoided anything that might result in them getting reported to immigration authorities and being deported. That includes reporting illnesses and injuries, and getting treatment for them."

A worker mixes pesticides, which will be sprayed on a field farmed by La Brucherie Produce, south of Seeley an unincorporated community in the Imperial Valley. Pesticide drift is one component of poor air quality in the valley.

Making complaints and getting care is easier and safer for farmworkers in a union workplace, including the undocumented. "If a worker has a problem," Barajas says, "he or she calls us. We go to the company, ask for a report, and send the person to a doctor. The company doesn't hide the problem, and we educate people so they know their rights. If someone has a lot of pain and still needs to work, we ask the company to give them a less demanding job."

Worksafe's Robbins calls this the union effect. In bargaining a union contract, workers can advocate changes to make work safer and healthier and improve their health care access. "Legislated standards give them credibility," she says, "but changes in a workplace happen when workers have a way to get their employers to implement them. You need organized workers for this."

Given the low wages in agriculture, however, health and safety changes and health care access are not always worker priorities. Solano describes work stoppages organized by Santa Maria strawberry pickers at the beginning of the 2022 season. Most were in their 20s and 30s, he says. "Their main demand was raising the wages, along with cleaner bathrooms and better drinking water. Because they're young they weren't thinking much about the impact of the next 15 or 20 years of work."

A crop duster sprays pesticides on a field next to the U.S./Mexico border in the Imperial Valley.

To lessen the stress on workers' bodies, Barajas says, the union included in its strawberry growers contract an agreement to give workers the option of resting every hour and a half - more frequently than legally required. "But there's such economic pressure from rent and food bills, plus sending money home, that most workers just worked through the break," he says.

The attitude of strawberry pickers is like that of the Triqui workers losing their thumbnails - earning enough money to survive is the overriding necessity. "We need to build their awareness that they won't always be young," Solano says. "They need to think about working with dignity, work that won't put their bodies in danger."

A tractor sprays pesticides on a field of green onions farmed by La Brucherie Produce, south of Seeley in the Imperial Valley.

In the early 1960s, that logic impelled California Rural Legal Assistance and the nascent farmworkers union to push the state to ban the "cortito" - the short-handled hoe. The long-term use of this tool, which forced workers to bend over double to thin lettuce and other row crops, led to widespread spinal injuries. California became the first state to prohibit its use. Farmworkers' need for better access to health care continued, while the cortito's elimination improved their health and made that need more manageable.

Changing the work in strawberry fields might have the same impact, since laborers have to bend over much as they did using the short-handled hoe. Getting rid of the cortito was relatively easy and cheap, however, since it just required substituting a long handle for a short one. "Changing the way strawberries are picked would be much harder," Barajas says. "Some growers now are beginning to change the structure of the rows, making the beds higher and covering them with rubber. But that's very expensive, and smaller growers can't do it."

In strawberry picking, like many jobs in agriculture, workers get paid for the amount they pick. "This system is the key to why people kill themselves," Barajas says, "but workers don't want an hourly wage because the minimum is so low. A much higher hourly wage would ease that pressure. But if the companies would just raise the price they pay per box from $2 or $2.10 to $2.30 or $2.40 people would be able to rest more. We need to look for ways workers can make enough so they don't have to mistreat their own bodies, and their access to health care doesn't have to be such a crisis."

Garrett Brown, a former inspector for CalOSHA, interviews a worker about her workplace health and safety complaint.

ILL HARVEST
California Farmworkers and the Struggle for Health Care

Guillermina Diaz, a Mixtec immigrant from Oaxaca, picks strawberries. She and her sister Eliadora support three other family members, all of whom sleep and live in a single room in a house in Oxnard.

More than 500,000 California farmworkers play a critical role in providing Americans with the food that nourishes and sustains their health. Yet, for those workers, their own health is too often in jeopardy.

The hazards present in farmwork - from exposure to the elements and harmful chemicals to the physical demands of picking and cutting crops - are aggravated by shortfalls in health coverage, delivery and workplace safety systems. As a result, farmworkers often go without the care they need, enduring injury and illness that might otherwise be prevented.

California's agricultural industry has always depended on immigrant labor, whether those migrants were from other U.S. states, Asia or Mexico. Ninety percent of California's farmworkers are immigrants, and more than half are undocumented. Many California farmworkers are indigenous laborers from Mexico for whom Spanish is not their primary language. For these workers, linguistic and cultural differences add another challenge to receiving adequate health care.

Journalists David Bacon and Pilar Marrero traveled to the communities where California farmworkers work and live to document the health care conditions they face. From their reporting, we provide a from-the-fields perspective through six stories:

In rural California, farmworkers fend for themselves to access health care
The occupational health risks of farmwork are legion, and not well regulated
California's historic Medi-Cal expansion will miss many farmworkers
How clinics adapt to serve indigenous farmworkers
The mental health toll of farmwork is heavy while access to therapy is scant
A union health plan fills gaps, but for only a few

TWO YEARS OF HEAT AND COVID IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY

Photographs by David Bacon

October 1, 2022 to February 10, 2023

Leo & Dottie Kolligian Library
University of California Merced
5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343

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

Price: $35 plus postage and handling
To order, click here:
https://david-bacon-photography.square.site/product/more-than-a-wall-mas-que-un-muro/1?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false

"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

IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH/EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE

Photographs by David Bacon

La Quinta Museum
77885 Avenida Montezuma
La Quinta, CA 92253
January 8, 2023 – April 16, 2023

Global Museum
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
San Francisco, CA
October 8 - December 3, 2023

Online Interviews and Presentations

Red Lens Episode 6: David Bacon on US-Mexico border photography
Brad Segal: On episode 6 of Red Lens, I talk with David Bacon.

David Bacon is a California-based writer and documentary photographer. A former union organizer, today he documents labor, the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights. We talk about David's new book, 'More than a Wall / Mas que un muro' which includes 30 years of his photography and oral histories from communities & struggles in the U.S.-Mexico border region.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/71834023?fbclid=IwAR0BRhHYbrYU3BoeoAMFKU_zdHs5Xirmmt1LzQtfwf1yD8p9EYLXKhzzbDE

Letters and Politics - Three Decades of Photographing The Border & Border Communities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvs6SyXsM-4
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.

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

David Bacon on union solidarity with Iraqi oil worker unions
Free City Radio - CKUT 27/10/2021 -
https://soundcloud.com/freecityradio/oct-27-2021-ckut-27102021-david-bacon-on-union-solidarity-with-iraqi-oil-worker-unions

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

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 - In the Fields of the North
History Museum of Tijuana
Recorrido Virtual de la Exposicion - En los campos del norte
Museo de Historia de Tijuana
https://www.facebook.com/542258639265202/videos/659536991515786

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 / 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

Other Books by David Bacon - Otros Libros

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

Copyright © 2022 David Bacon Photographs and Stories, All rights reserved.
you're on this list because of your interest in david bacon's photographs and stories
Our mailing address is:

David Bacon Photographs and Stories

address on request

Oakland, Ca 94601

Friday, December 09, 2022

Outrage Over Viktor Bout Exposes US Hypocrisy & Anti-Intellectualism

Cher - My Love (The Cher Show, 03/23/1975)

FREE MUMIA! 41 YEARS IS MORE THAN ENOUGH!

Your Bioneers 2023 Sneak Peek Is Here!

SNEAK PEEK OF WHAT'S TO COME!

Hi Bioneer,

We’re excited to give you a first peek at what you can expect at our 34th annual Bioneers Conference! Don’t forget to sign up for alerts to receive a 15% discount code, ready for you to use when registration opens in early January. (Already signed up for alerts? Your discount code will arrive shortly.)

LEARN MORE HERE

As we roll into next year’s conference, the big wheels of massive change are turning. Since 1990, the Bioneers Conference has served as a trellis on which a visionary movement of movements has grown and grown together around authentic “solve-the-whole problem” solutions.

Climate disruption bears down daily, and there’s a widely felt awakening that it’s going to crash the economy and bring civilization to its knees. Meanwhile, the movements of the past decade for liberation, justice, and multicultural democracy are swelling to challenge the populist and neo-fascist forces underwritten by plutocratic elites.

Bioneers is about a revolution from the heart of nature and the human heart. Never has it been more vital that we come together around the council fire to share what we’ve learned, link arms, fill our hearts and vision, and align ourselves to prevail for the long haul.

We invite you to join forces with the Bioneers community of leadership in this time when we’re all called upon to be leaders. As David Orr says, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”

Read the full introduction to Bioneers 2023 here.

OUR FIRST CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Check back often to see additions to our speaker list!

Judy Baca, one of the most renowned “engaged” artists of the last half century, who, among her countless achievements and plethora of participatory, community-based artworks around the world, created over several decades with the help of over 400 community youth and artists the Great Wall of Los Angeles, the largest communal mural project in the world.

Rebecca Solnit, one of our nation’s most influential writers, thinkers, historians and activists, author of 20+ books, including: Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one of the most effective political figures in the country who has been an indispensable vital force pushing for social justice-oriented policies in Washington.

Casey Camp-Horinek, Councilwoman and Hereditary Drum-keeper of the Women’s Scalp Dance Society of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma is a longtime activist, world-renowned campaigner for Environmental Justice, as well as an actress and author.

Danny Kennedy, with a long background in eco activism, has become one of the nation’s leading figures in clean-technology entrepreneurship and the capitalization of the transition to a “green” economy. Co-founder of solar energy companies, Powerhouse and Sungevity, he is currently Managing Director of the California Clean Energy Fund.

Bryant Terry, an award-winning chef, educator, and author renowned for his activism to create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system, is: Editor-in-Chief of 4 Color Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House and Ten Speed Press); Co-Principal and Innovation Director of the Zenmi creative studio; and Chef-in-Residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. His most recent (2021) and 6th book, Black Food was among the most widely critically acclaimed food-related books of recent years. His other books include: Vegetable Kingdom, Afro-Vegan, and Vegan Soul Kitchen.

Laura Flanders, one of the pre-eminent progressive journalists and media figures in the country, is the host and executive producer of The Laura Flanders Show, which airs on PBS stations nationwide. She is an Izzy-Award winning independent journalist, a bestselling author (including of: Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Political Change in America and Bushwomen), and a recipient of the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Media Center.

PRE-CONFERENCE GUIDED TOURS

On Wednesday, April 5, we’ll welcome registrants to join us for two pre-conference East-Bay social justice-themed guided tours, designed for Bioneers attendees. Each tour will include site visits, presentations by experts, and specially-themed lunches.

Bay Area Green Tours expedition will showcase several cutting-edge socially conscious urban farming and food production projects in the East Bay.

Ethnic Ties Travel tour will celebrate the vibrant cultural history and ever-developing landscape of the East Bay as a hub of social justice activism.

Stay tuned ... registration opening soon!

THANKS TO OUR LOCAL PARTNERS

We are proud to be partnering in wide range of ways with several vital, locally based organizations this year, including:

Many others to be announced soon!

Bioneers / Collective Heritage Institute

1014 Torney Ave

San Francisco, California 94129

The Common Ills