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President Obama Plans Action in Response to Speaker Boehner’s Refusal to Call a Vote on Immigration Reform

Today, President Obama announced that he will take executive action to reform our immigration system. The President’s remarks came after House Speaker Boehner told him that the House would not pursue a vote this year on much-needed immigration reform. This refusal to address our immigration crisis hurts our economy and the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, including 1 million or more farmworkers.

“Farmworker Justice commends the President’s commitment to take administrative action to reform our broken immigration system. Hundreds of thousands of farmworkers who labor to put food on our tables suffer each day because they are unable to secure authorized immigration status,” said Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice. “We urge President Obama to act boldly and to provide affirmative relief for undocumented farmworkers and other undocumented immigrants with strong ties to the U.S.”

“The refusal of the Speaker to bring comprehensive immigration reform to a vote hurts farmworkers, farm operators, our food system and our country. While it is now critical that the President take action, only comprehensive legislation will truly fix our immigration system. Speaker Boehner’s inaction is irresponsible and inhumane. Once again he has chosen to put politics over the needs of workers and our economy,” said Goldstein.

Rep. McCarthy Must Use His New Role as Majority Leader to Tackle Immigration Reform

Comprehensive Reform Would Benefit His Agricultural-Dependent District

Today, House Republicans elected Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as their new majority leader, a position that gives him the power to bring long-stalled comprehensive immigration reform to the floor for a vote.

“Rep. McCarthy represents one of the most important agricultural areas of our country, which suffers under our broken immigration system,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice. “Farmworkers in his district contribute to our country and communities through their hard work cultivating and harvesting our fruits and vegetables and must be given the opportunity to earn a path to citizenship. Growers in his district depend on these aspiring Citizens.”

Immigration reform must include the agricultural stakeholder compromise, a tough-but-fair agreement that was designed to address the needs of both grower and farmworker interests. The compromise is included in the bipartisan Senate bill, S. 744 that passed almost one year ago, and is in the bipartisan House bill, HR 15. It provides a roadmap toward legal residency and citizenship for farmworkers and their families and creates a new agricultural guestworker system which includes both difficult concessions and important new protections. This legislation would help stabilize the agricultural industry in McCarthy’s district.

“As majority leader, Rep. McCarthy now has the power with Speaker John Boehner to bring immigration reform to the floor of the House. Over the past year, McCarthy has said that he is committed to resolving our immigration crisis. He must seize this opportunity to address our country’s demand for immigration reform,” said Goldstein.

Victory for Washington State Berry Pickers as Sakuma Brothers Farms Withdraws its Application for H-2A Guestworkers

Washington State berry grower Sakuma Brothers Farms has withdrawn its application asking the federal government to allow it to employ as many as 438 foreign H-2A “guest workers” to harvest its berries this season.

Sakuma had made the application after the company’s domestic workers formed an organization last year, “Familias Unidas Por la Justicia” (Families United for Justice), in order to bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions. Farmworker Justice opposed the application, on behalf of the Familias Unidas workers, in administrative proceedings before the U.S. Department of Labor, which is responsible for administering and enforcing compliance with H-2A program requirements.

“It is clear that Sakuma withdrew its application for H-2A workers realizing that it cannot qualify, given its refusal to hire workers already in the country who are readily available and willing to work,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice.

“The withdrawal and conciliatory language from the Sakuma family points to an obvious final resolution: bring back the experienced Familias Unidas workers who said they are ready to work for Sakuma, and enter into a formal contractual agreement over wages and working conditions that will ensure a stable and ready work force for the company going forward,” said Goldstein.

Groups Challenge EPA Failure to Protect Children from Pesticides

Environmental, health, and farmworker advocacy groups filed an Administrative Objection and a court appeal this week, challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) refusal to quickly correct errors in pesticide registrations and its refusal to immediately implement protective measures to safeguard children from exposure to dangerous pesticides that drift from fields during and after application.

Earthjustice and Farmworker Justice are representing Pesticide Action Network North America, United Farm Workers of America, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos Del Noroeste, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sea Mar Community Health Center, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

It took EPA more than four years and a court action to provide a response to a request to comply with existing law that requires the agency to protect kids from being exposed to pesticides that drift from fields and orchards. When they did finally respond, they refused the request to take immediate action to protect kids, instead leaving in place decisions and policies they admit are deficient.

“When EPA finally responded, they said that they would comply with the law in their own good time, which means potentially another eight years before mistakes are corrected and protections in place,” said Earthjustice attorney Janette Brimmer. “EPA refused to require even the most minimal buffers around kids’ homes, schools or daycares — and failed to include the margin of safety in its risk calculations that is required by law.”

The agency has long acknowledged that children experience higher levels of pesticide exposure relative to their size than do adults. Officials acknowledged in April that EPA had failed to consider drift in setting pesticide limits, contrary to legal requirements under the Food Quality Protection Act. EPA’s original deadline to complete this work under the Act was 2006. Despite admitting their mistake, EPA declined to implement immediate protections or alter their current plans and plodding timelines, which extend to 2022. Agency officials insist that the current approach to addressing and regulating pesticide drift is good enough. Farmworker and environmental advocacy groups that filed the original petition firmly disagree.

“EPA's refusal to implement minimal interim protection measures is unconscionable and unsupported,” said Kristin Schafer, Program & Policy Director for Pesticide Action Network, one of the plaintiffs in the suit and objections. "We could not stand by and leave EPA's tepid response unchallenged.”

The Petitioners have filed an administrative objection with EPA urging the agency to revise its response to impose additional tenfold safety factors on various pesticide registrations while it completes revised risk assessment for children’s potential exposures to pesticide drift. The simultaneous court action on behalf of a subset of the groups seeks an order compelling EPA to immediately implement spray buffers to protect children’s homes, schools, daycares and play areas while EPA is completing the revised risk assessment.

The insecticide chlorpyrifos clearly illustrates the problem with EPA's assertion that current rules are adequately protective. Recent science has shown that even low levels of exposure to the chemical can harm children's developing brains and nervous systems—and drift of the pesticide into homes and schools in rural areas is well-documented. Under EPA's current regulations, this new science will be considered in the chemical review to be completed in several more years.

"We know kids are particularly vulnerable to pesticides in the first seven years of life," said Erik Nicholson, National Vice-President of the United Farm Workers, another plaintiff. "EPA's refusal to act means another entire generation of children will be exposed to harmful pesticides—this is both unnecessary and unacceptable. And farmworker children currently bear and will bear the heaviest burden."

Studies show that farmworker children are not only exposed to pesticides that drift in the air and contaminate the water in rural areas, they also face exposure from residues of the chemicals brought into the home on their parents work clothes and skin.

“The science is clear that children are more susceptible to pesticides,” said Barbara Gottlieb, Director of Environment and Health at Physicians for Social Responsibility. “EPA is aware of that elevated risk and yet—for years—has delayed taking necessary steps to protect children from pesticide drift.”

Farmworker and public health advocates filed a lawsuit in July of 2013, seeking an answer to a petition that the advocates filed with the agency in 2009, urging EPA to set safety standards protecting children who grow up near farms from the harmful effects of pesticide drift. The original petition urged EPA to evaluate the impacts of pesticides on children and adopt interim prohibitions near places where children congregate. In their long-delayed, formal response to plaintiffs, officials refused to take any additional steps to establish protections.

“Five years later and EPA is no closer to protecting children from hazardous pesticide drift,” said Virginia Ruiz, an attorney with Farmworker Justice, also representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “It’s time for the Agency to take a stand for children’s health.”

Pesticide Action Network North America, United Farm Workers of America, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos Del Noroeste, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sea Mar Community Health Center, Farm Labor Organizaing Committee, and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation are participating in the objections to EPA. Pesticide Action Network North America, United Farm Workers of America, and Pineros y Campesinos Unidos Del Noroeste are parties to the court action.

“Rural workers and their families deserve better,” said Della Barnett, Project Director at California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a party to the objection to EPA. “We urge EPA to stand with sound science and working families to protect children from a known avenue to dangerous exposure to pesticides.”

Consumers File Lawsuit against Darigold, Inc. for Misleading Marketing Claims

Citing deceptive business practices, consumers filed a federal class action lawsuit against Darigold, an agricultural marketing cooperative that is one of the largest dairy producers in the country with more than 500 participating farms and total annual sales of almost $2 billion dollars.

In the filing, the plaintiffs claim Darigold misrepresents the way its member suppliers treat both animals and workers, in marketing materials and the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report.

Farmworker Justice and the Law Offices of Marcos Camacho will serve as co-counsel for the consumers.

Although Darigold publicly claims that their participating farms ensure care for animal health, promote food safety and provide labor protections, workers have regularly reported labor and animal rights violations and poor working conditions on suppliers’ farms. The filing states that milk is produced from injured and sick cows, and that workers do not have access to drinkable water, sanitary lunch rooms or rest breaks. Workers also claim on-going wage theft and workplace discrimination.

“At the root of any company’s Corporate Social Responsibility efforts must be fair and just treatment of their workers,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice. “Darigold is clearly not committed to these goals based on the abuses documented by workers on their suppliers’ farms. Consumers deserve to know the truth behind how Darigold’s suppliers treat their employees and how their products are being made.”

Workers and consumers will hold press conferences in Portland and Seattle on May 8th.

Spring 2014 Farmworker Justice News Now Available

Learn how Farmworker Justice helps farmworkers improve their living and working conditions. Highlights include:

Immigration Reform Update: Committed Until Reform becomes a Reality

Victory for Farmworkers: Remedying Systematic Labor Abuses Confronted by Farmworkers

The Affordable Care Act and Farmworkers: Outreach to Farmworker Communities Continues

Now is the Time to Protect Farmworkers from Pesticides: Worker Protection Standard is Open for Public Comment

Washington State Berry Farm Seeks to Displace Domestic Workers with Foreign Workers

Lawyers and advocates for farmworkers have asked the U.S. Department of Labor to block a large Washington state berry producer from displacing hundreds of domestic workers with foreign guest workers brought in under the federal government’s temporary foreign agricultural worker program, known as the “H-2A” program. H-2A workers are vulnerable to abusive employer practices and fearful of challenging unfair or illegal conduct because they hold only a temporary visa to work for a single employer and return home at the end of the season with no promise of being hired in a future year.

Sakuma Brothers Farms, located an hour north of Seattle in Burlington, WA is a major employer of migrant and seasonal berry harvest workers and supplies fruit to the gourmet ice cream maker, Haagen-Dazs. Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a union organized by Sakuma Brothers workers, sought improved wages and working conditions last season after workers were fired in retaliation for requesting improvements. They eventually filed a wage and hour class action lawsuit last fall against Sakuma for not receiving rest breaks and violations of their rights under the federal AWPA.

In a letter sent yesterday to the Department of Labor, the DC-based advocacy group Farmworker Justice and Seattle law firm Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt LLP urged the Department to deny Sakuma’s application for foreign H-2A workers. The letter asserts that the farm is acting to punish the Familias Unidas workers for seeking better wages and working conditions by replacing them with H-2A workers.

Sakuma Brothers filed an application this month for 438 H-2A workers for the summer season. The program requires that they demonstrate a shortage of available farmworkers in the United States. The law also requires Sakuma to contact its workers from 2013 and seek their return to work. Familias Unidas has already sent Sakuma letters from more than 460 of its members declaring their intent to return to work this season.

“How can Sakuma Brothers tell the federal government they have a domestic labor shortage when we have delivered over 460 pledges from workers who were employed at Sakuma last year?” asks Ramon Torres, one of the leaders of Familias Unidas.

“It is clear that Sakuma Brothers Farm seeks to displace domestic workers who have sought better wages and working conditions,” said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice. “The H-2A workers that Sakuma has requested do not have the same protections or ability to demand fair wages and working conditions, leaving them vulnerable to employer exploitation.”

“Using the H-2A temporary agricultural guestworker program as a means to retaliate against workers seeking better wages and working conditions violates the spirit and intent of the program,” said Laura Ewan, attorney at Schwerin Campbell Barnard Iglitzin & Lavitt. “If a worker applying for these positions also wishes to participate in labor organizing or other concerted labor activities, such participation does not create a valid job-related reason for denying the worker employment. Allowing these workers to be rejected for such reasons would deprive them of labor rights they enjoy under state law.”

Miami Herald OpEd: Life as an undocumented farmworker

Through Farmworker Justice's work with farmworkers and farmworker service organizations on the ground, we were able to help this undocumented farmworker lift up his voice to describe his experiences living and working in agriculture.

Original Article:

This week in Washington, immigrant groups are protesting the Obama administration’s deportation of immigrants — 2 million, they say, in five years. They want it to stop until Congress finishes passing immigration reform. Here is what it’s like to be an undocumented farm worker, as told (using a pseudonym) by a migrant worker in Florida.

It has been nearly 20 years since I left Mexico and came to Florida — two decades of hard work without getting ahead that much. That’s 20 years in orchards and vegetable fields here, or picking cucumbers in Ohio, apples in Michigan and Washington, tomatoes in Tennessee, melons in Georgia — always in fear of deportation. I’ve spent 20 years dreaming about becoming legal. For me, that’s the American Dream: to be a United States citizen.

We couldn’t make a go of it in Mexico in 1995, my wife and I; there wasn’t enough work so we came here. There really is no way to do it legally — to get a visa that lets you work and stay, unless you have family here or know someone important. I didn’t have any experience in the fields. Farm work was what I could get and so a farm worker is what I became, and that is what I am today. I’m good at it, but it’s not what I want my children to do.

We’d been here a couple of years before we sent for our two kids. It was scary. We paid someone to bring them across the border but for a long time, about a month but it felt like an eternity — we didn’t hear anything. We weren’t sure where they were or even if they were alive. Eventually we got a call that they were safe, but we had to drive to get them at the border. They were about 3 and 5 years old then. Today they are 24 and 22, also working in agriculture, with families of their own. Our other three kids were born here and are citizens.

Farm work is hard. We start in the orchards early, when the humidity is high and the trees are wet. We’re carrying bags and they get heavy, up to 90 pounds of oranges when full, as we climb up and down from tree to tree, reaching in and picking the fruit, placing it in the bag and moving on. We’re soaked all day with moisture and sweat. There aren’t many breaks for water or a bathroom, although some places are better than others. We work when it’s hot and cold; if we can’t work, we don’t get paid.

I travel — always taking my family. In recent years, we have driven 3,000 miles to Washington state. We get to the area where we hear they need apple pickers and look for a contractor. Sometimes we can afford a motel; or we sleep in the car until we find housing. We are cautious; if you attract attention someone could call a cop or the immigration guys. One slip-up and you’re caught in the system that takes you away from your family forever. Half of the people I work with are in the same situation.

When you’re undocumented, people take advantage. We show up for work as part of a crew of anywhere from 9 or 10 to 30 men and women. I’m lucky; I have a car so when I’m in a job with abusive supervisors, I leave. I have seen and heard of supervisors who take advantage of workers who don’t have other options.

This is particularly true for indigenous workers who don’t speak much Spanish or have a car; they stay because of a lack of options. Sometimes they cheat us out of what we are owed, or pay less than the contract promises. Even if we could report it, we would have to hang around instead of hitting the highway to the next job.

We never go back to Mexico. My father died and my wife’s father, but we didn’t attend the funerals. We would have had to leave the kids behind and if we couldn’t get back in, what would happen?

I know people who have been deported, even some married to legal residents or citizens. They tell us Congress might pass immigration reform. The most important thing is to stop breaking up families. I’ve tried to tell my children that the police are their friends, but they know that the police also can destroy our family. They’ve seen it happen with their friends. If we could get legal status or citizenship, none of that would be a problem.

Farm work is the work I have. I like the idea that we feed other families. Where I come from, the family is the center of everything. I hope a new law will protect our families in the United States.

Jaime Diaz is a pseudonym for a farm worker who lives in Florida.

Farmworkers, Wages, and Immigration Reform: Farmworker Justice President on Action 4 News (Texas)

Farmworkers play an integral role in our agricultural sector.

They not only provide labor, but their work also puts the majority of the food we eat on our kitchen tables.

Action 4 News learned many farmworkers are still struggling to be paid the required federal minimum wage.

We spoke with an legal advocate for farmworkers nationwide.

He said not much has changed over the last couple decades for farmworkers, and many still endure unsafe working and living conditions.

"Farmworkers do some of the most important work in this country. They feed us and yet, they are excluded from many labor laws and labor protections," said Farmworker Justice President and attorney Bruce Goldstein.

The Washington D.C. based advocacy group, Farmworker Justice, said many farmworkers are afraid to stand up for their rights because more than half are undocumented immigrants.
"It’s not good for anyone- low wages, poor working conditions. It can mean fear of going to the police when there is crime," explained Goldstein.

Francisco Alvarez has worked as a farmworker for over 20 years. A few years back, he went to South Carolina to work on a tobacco farm. He was not only forced to live in substandard conditions, but he was also paid less than minimum wage.

"[The boss] already had 15 people without eating and living in a warehouse with only bread and water. I asked , ‘You're not going to have us living like them in a shed with the cows?’" Alvarez recalled.

Alvarez tried proving he had documentation, but he says the owner didn't care.

"When he looked at my green card and my brother's, he said, ‘That's no good. Throw it away, throw it away in the trash,’" said Alvarez.

He walked off the job after three days.

Goldstein said farmworkers are not covered by the National Labor Relations Act, which is why they are not entitled to overtime pay nor have the same occupational safety protections.

"Basically, these exclusions are because agribusiness has more political power than farmworkers do," said Goldstein.

It’s something he hopes will change.

Farmworker Justice is pushing for immigration reform to allow farmworkers the opportunity to obtain citizenship.

Alvarez said while a reform would open doors for farmworkers to do other jobs, more needs to be done to change current working conditions because whether you are an American citizen, an immigrant with a work visa, or are undocumented, many times you are treated equally poor.

"If we got immigration reform, we still have employers like farm owners who abuse people because we already have our green cards, but where are we going to work if there are employers who tell us it’s worthless?" asked Alvarez.

Video URL http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=1027141

U.S. and Mexico Labor Secretaries Meet to Discuss Guestworker Abuses

Today we celebrate an important victory in the fight for migrant workers' rights.

Thomas Perez, U.S. Secretary of Labor, and Alfonso Navarrete Prida, Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare for Mexico, will meet face-to-face for the first time. They will engage in ministerial consultations and sign a joint declaration pursuant to the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), the labor side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The declaration responds to a petition filed by CDM in 2011 on behalf of migrant workers in the fairs and carnivals, and also addresses petitions filed in 2003 and 2005 by Farmworker Justice, Northwest Workers' Justice Project and other organizations. The signing represents the first such ministerial declaration signed between the U.S. and Mexico in twelve years. According to Sarah Rempel, CDM Policy Director, "The fact that the labor secretaries are addressing abuses faced by guestworkers in their first ever meeting sends a strong statement about the critical importance of this pressing issue."

In CDM's petition, fair and carnival workers alleged that they were paid below minimum wage, were deprived of overtime wages, and were not paid for all the hours they worked. Workers also paid hefty recruitment fees and other costs in Mexico in order to get jobs in the United States."Migrants' rights should be protected. We go to work in the United States, to help U.S. companies with their business. To be exploited like this is an injustice," Leonardo Cortez, former H-2B fair and carnival and petitioner, insisted.

According to the NAALC, now in its twentieth year, Canada, Mexico, and the United States are obliged to provide the same labor and employment protections to migrant workers as to their own nationals. But, as described in CDM's petition, the U.S. is not meeting its obligations.

"We are pleased to see action being taken in response to these petitions, but the success of this process will depend on its implementation. CDM looks forward to engaging with the DOL and STPS in the upcoming stakeholder meetings," stated Rachel Micah-Jones, Executive Director of CDM. The implementation must include pre-departure education, increased enforcement of labor and employment laws, and access to legal services for guestworkers.

"Despite the long delay in this process, we are pleased that the governments of the United States and Mexico will discuss the longstanding concerns about the unequal treatment of H-2A agricultural workers under U.S. labor laws and the need for greater enforcement of farmworkers' labor rights on North Carolina's farms," said Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy group that filed one of the formal complaints that the labor ministers are discussing. "Both governments have a responsibility to end the rampant abuses suffered by guestworkers in the tobacco and other harvests in North Carolina."

Today's ministerial declaration is a first step for the governments to ensure that migrant workers' rights are respected under the international treaty. It is an important step and worth applauding, but there is more work to be done.