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Up to 5,000 Wash. state apple workers march for better pay, push UFW bills to legalize undocumented farm laborers


August 5, 2001: 11 a.m. press avail., 1 p.m. rally Sunday in Yakima
Up to 5,000 Wash. state apple workers march for better pay, push UFW bills to legalize undocumented farm laborers


As many as 5,000 Washington state apple workers will march Sunday in Yakima promoting a "Fair Trade Apple" campaign to boost growers’ profits and workers’ wages, and to support United Farm Workers-sponsored legislation allowing undocumented field laborers and their families to become legal residents. The march includes UFW President Arturo Rodriguez and top labor leaders from Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Washington state.
 
On Thursday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) introduced UFW-backed bills in the Senate and House that would let an estimated 500,000 U.S. farm workers and their immediate family members legalize their immigration status. The measures would also, for the first time, give farm workers the same rights under federal law to organize and join a union that industrial workers won in 1935. And it would preserve the pay and legal protections afforded imported foreign workers under the current federal H-2A visa program.
 
The union’s Fair Trade Apple drive, launched on Thursday, aims for a joint effort by growers and the UFW that uses consumer pressure on retailers to pay growers more for their fruit. Supermarkets’ profit on apples are 33% above costs–one of the highest profit margins in the stores. Paying fairer prices would help growers survive and improve pay and benefits for apple workers.
 

Who:              UFW President Arturo Rodriguez; top labor leaders from Canada, Mexico and Brazil; 
                       state and federal elected officials and religious leaders.
 
What:             March and rally with 5,000 Washington state apple workers.
 
When:            10 a.m. Mass, 11 a.m. press availability; 11:30 a.m. march, 1 p.m. rally.
 
Where:           March begins with Mass and ends with rally at Miller Park, 3rd St. & Ave. "E" in Yakima.
 

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