United Farm Workers of America
CHCI screening of “Cesar Chavez”
Washington, D.C.—February 4, 1014
Cesar said many times that if his movement didn’t survive his death then his work would be in vain.
The union of Cesar Chavez continues to aggressively help farm workers organize and negotiate new UFW contracts that dramatically change their lives, and to win new legal protections.
Workers in recent years won UFW contracts with the largest strawberry grower and winery in America, one of California’s biggest vegetable growers, three-fourths of the state’s fresh mushroom industry, some of the state’s largest tomato growers, one of the biggest dairies in the nation, and Washington state’s largest winery.
The UFW also won recent California laws that let farm workers use neutral mediators to hammer out union contracts when employers refuse to agree to a contract. Representatives Vargas, Chu, Cardenas, Negrete-McLeod, and Bass all helped pass these laws when they served in the California Legislature.
As a result, thousands of additional farm workers are winning union protections.
More than 5,000 farm workers in Fresno County are now battling against stern resistance to implement a UFW contract ordered by the state at Gerawan Farming, one of America’s largest grape and tree fruit companies.
Gerawan resists implementing that UFW contract to avoid paying its workers an estimated two million dollars they are owed just from July until January—and millions more over the duration of the contract.
President Obama and Secretary Perez just last week attended an event at a Costco store where they recognized the work that Costco and the UFW are doing together across the nation to help increase farm worker wages.
Nearly five hundred million dollars have been paid out to farm workers in union health and pension benefits.
The UFW convinced then-Governor Schwarzenegger to issue the first state regulations in the nation that protect farm workers from dying or becoming ill from extreme heat. Although those heat rules have saved many lives, state enforcement of these standards and other good laws remains a challenge. More than two-dozen California farm workers have perished from heat illness since then.
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With American farm labor now overwhelmingly immigrant, Latino, and undocumented, the UFW negotiated with the nation’s growers to create the agricultural provisions of the bipartisan immigration reform bill passed by the Senate. If the House acts, immigrant farm workers here now could earn legal status by continuing to work on farms, thus freeing them from their vulnerability to abuse.
Thank you Senator Menendez and Representative Hinojosa for your leadership in creating a new immigration process. Support for the deal between the UFW and the growers is an important part of the Senate bill, and legislation on which Representatives Becerra and Gutierrez as well as six other Members of Congress have worked.
Senators Feinstein and Bennet—plus Senators Rubio and Hatch—supported us in those negotiations.
We understand how Senator Menendez has suggested that New Jersey tomatoes are the best. We appreciate his pride in the state’s produce. But we are proud to say that the best tomatoes are those harvested by UFW members now under union contracts in California. Those workers won pay increases of as much as 30 percent plus job security, grievance procedures and in many cases pensions.
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We have a unique opportunity with this film to reach millions of good people who don’t think about where their food comes from—or about the men, women and children who produce it. It opens the weekend of March 28, in 100 markets and 300 theaters.
Please help us fill all of those theaters in your states and districts.
But also honor Cesar’s legacy by continuing to support the men and women who carry on his labors today—through the work of the UFW and the Cesar Chavez Foundation.
Si Se Puede!