At Capitol meet with Governor’s aides
By Edgar Sanchez
Special to the UFW
SACRAMENTO — A week after Gov. Jerry Brown received a bill that would make it easier for farm workers to join unions, two relatives of Cesar Chavez on Thursday visited Brown’s office at the state Capitol to press for enactment of the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act.
“The growers say that Cesar would be against this bill. They are wrong,” Rita Chavez Medina, 86, a sister of the late founder of the United Farm Workers, told three Brown aides. “He would be 100 percent behind this bill.”
Also present were Cesar’s niece Lydia Medina and 10 mostly elderly farm laborers, most of whom worked with the late founder of the United Farm Workers.
The meeting occurred five days before Tuesday’s deadline for Brown to sign SB 104. Since June 16, thousands of farm workers, organized labor members and other citizens have rallied at the Capitol in support of the bill, which was recently passed by the Legislature. At least 100 have also fasted for at least a day.
The UFW delegation met with Brown aides, including Legislative Affairs Specialist Martha Guzman and Nick Velasquez, Brown’s director of external affairs.
Both apologized for Brown’s absence, saying the state’s budget crisis precluded his attendance.Then, one by one, each farm worker made his or her remarks. To show respect, those with caps or hats removed them before speaking.
“We want all farm workers to receive the benefits of law 104,” said Miguel Moran, 58, who has picked mushrooms at a unionized Ventura farm for 34 years.
“We want other farm workers in California to have this precious benefit,” he added. “We hope the governor will sign this law. The Hispanic community is waiting.”
Some of the visitors spoke about the suffering of California’s 400,000 farm workers — how most toil for long hours under a broiling sun, often for little pay under abusive bosses who like to say, “If you vote for the union, you’ll be out of a job” or “If you join the union, it will take more money from you than what you earn.”
Union membership means better lives, the farm workers said. For starters, they said, it means enhanced working conditions and a host of benefits such as paid vacations, medical insurance and pensions.
“Union workers will not ask the state for money to pay hospital bills or for their medication,” said Gerardo Flores, 73. “So the state also benefits.”
Laborers who had worked with Cesar agreed he would have fought for SB 104’s passage, to make it easier for farm workers to organize and join unions.
“If he were alive, this bill would have been signed by now,” said Rogelio Lona, a farm worker from California’s Central Coast.
A rocking chair that was a favorite of Cesar’s was carried into the meeting by the delegation. The UFW has invited Brown to sit in it for the signing of SB 104.
Two farm workers sobbed as they pleaded for Brown to endorse the bill.
“In 1964 I heard about a man named Cesar Chavez who was organizing farm workers,” said Josefina Flores, 82, a retired farm laborer from Delano. She met him at a Selma community meeting that same year. The following year, 1965, “I joined his cause,” Flores said.
A decade later, Flores became an assistant to Chavez in La Paz, the UFW’s home base.
“I used to clean his office,” Flores said, tears streaming down her face. “Many times I cleaned that chair where he sat,” she said, pointing at the historic piece of furniture beside Cesar’s sister and niece.
Flores added: “I, along with many farm workers, campaigned for Brown the first time he ran for governor in the 1970s. Last year, I again campaigned for him…“I hope he helps us by signing this law.”
Velasquez, Brown’s director of external affairs, assured the visitors their comments would be relayed to the governor.
“We’ve heard your powerful stories,” he said. “We understand how important it (SB 104) is for your lives. Thank you.”
Edgar Sanchez is a former writer for The Sacramento Bee and The Palm Beach Post