Bakersfield, Calif.—Three new officers elected Friday by delegates at the United Farm Workers’ quadrennial convention share one thing in common: They played central roles in the union’s recent string of organizing triumphs that is dramatically growing its ranks after field workers voted in the UFW at nearly a dozen companies in California and New York State.
Elected worker delegates from unionized companies elected three new members to the union’s National Executive Board on the first day of the UFW’s 22nd Constitutional Convention in Bakersfield. A majority of the UFW leadership continues to be composed of women. Also re-elected at the convention is union President Teresa Romero, the first Latina immigrant to lead a national union in the United States. For more on the just elected UFW officers click on theirs names.
Areli Arteaga, the UFW’s political and legislative director, is the daughter of Idaho farm workers and worked in the fields herself beginning at age nine. She helped win California’s landmark 2022 law letting farm workers join the union free from intimidation and retaliation and organized turnout for the UFW campaign’s grueling 335-mile, 24-day march up the Central Valley to Sacramento in the searing summer heat. Areli has extensive experience on local, state and national union political campaigns, played a key role in UFW legislative advocacy for immigration reform and with the Biden-Harris administration on the rule-making process for heat safety and protections for H-2A workers. Her duties center on advocating for public policies across the country that build farm worker power and improve their lives. She lives in Idaho.
Roman Pinal, a 24-year veteran UFW organizer, was born in East Los Angeles and became a UFW activist while in college in 1992. He has led or participated in countless union drives organizing orange, wine grape, rose, strawberry, nursery and mushroom workers throughout California as well as in Washington state, where agricultural workers do not yet have the right to unionize. Roman is also organizing workers confronting gender discrimination and unsafe working conditions and is leading the UFW project helping immigrant workers involved in labor disputes win deferred action and work permits, helping hundreds acquire the life-changing protected status. Most recently, he was lead organizer on recent UFW election wins, including Olive Hill Greenhouses in San Diego County. He lives in Southern California.
Elizabeth Strater, the union’s director of strategic campaigns, was born in Canada, started working with the teachers’ union while attending the University of Toronto, and labored in Canadian labor policy and progressive political campaigns before moving to California in 2016. She played a central role guiding strategic messaging during the UFW drive for the 2022 labor rights expansion in California. Elizabeth has also championed Pacific Northwest dairy workers, spearheaded union victories that brought overtime pay to farm workers in Washington state and Oregon. She helped expand union digital platforms and grow wider public backing by interweaving digital and traditional media strategies. She lives in Los Angeles.
Hundreds of agricultural workers and supporters are gathering over three days this weekend at the Mechanics Bank Convention Center in Bakersfield. Delegates are elected by fellow workers at companies under union contract.
Since late last year, the UFW has been certified by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board as bargaining representative for farm workers at five companies across California after a series of union victories, with more anticipated. Also since 2023, the UFW has scored impressive progress on the other side of the continent in New York State where the union has been certified by the state Public Employment Relations Board following votes for the UFW by farm workers at six farms under a similar law passed there in 2019, also with more victories expected.
Journalists interested in attending the UFW convention must RSVP to media@ufw.org for registration and press credentials. UFW sessions are taking place at the Mechanics Bank Convention Center, 1001 Truxtun Ave., Bakersfield, Calif. 93301
###