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UFW backs Biden: ‘elections matter’ in protecting Dreamers, achieving immigration reform, farm worker overtime pay & prevention of heat deaths in the fields

United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero issued the following statement from the union’s Keene, Calif. headquarters in announcing the UFW’s endorsement of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling temporarily blocking Donald Trump’s elimination of DACA reminds us of a simple reality: The Obama-Biden administration created DACA to protect Dreamers. The Trump administration rescinded DACA. Trump vows to crack down on Dreamers again. Now, a Biden presidency can get a law passed permanently protecting Dreamers.

A Biden presidency can pass a law providing an accelerated pathway to legal status for farm workers whose skills and hard work feed America. A Biden presidency can ensure future agricultural worker programs honor farm workers currently in the U.S. and do not doom future Americans to permanent second-class legal status. A Biden presidency can work to achieve for all American farm workers the same overtime pay after eight hours a day that the UFW won in California. A Biden presidency can help enact the same rules preventing farm workers from dying or becoming ill from extreme heat that the UFW won in California. A Biden presidency will ensure the same COVID-19 paid sick leave for all essential U.S. farm workers the UFW helped win in California plus actual implementation of worker protections on farms.

We need leadership that respects the roles and contributions of all Americans and values those who feed us instead of the current leadership that seeks to lower farm worker wages and dehumanize them.

Elections matter. There are 132 days before the next election. The UFW will spend every one of those days making sure people vote. We invite everyone who appreciates that farm workers put the food on America’s tables to join our effort to elect new leadership for the nation.

Note: UFW members who voted to endorse Joe Biden as well as farm workers from key swing states such as Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas and Florida who join the UFW in enthusiastically supporting Biden will be available for interviews upon request.

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