Baldemar Velasquez; Farmworkers need labor law protections

[Omaha Steve]

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/baldemar-velasquez-farmworkers-need-labor-law-protections/

Posted on April 27, 2009 by dcampbell1

A Call to Wage a National Campaign for Farmworker Labor Rights

I agreed to be one of the original sponsors of the call to build this movement - not a call for specific legislation, i.e. NLRA - but rather to confront the historical racism inherent in the first call for labor legislation in the 30’s.

At a time when most of the farm workers in the Deep South were Blacks, the Dixiecrats that controlled Congress would never see blacks on an equal field as their counterparts in other industries. Every reform that’s been debated since has excluded farm workers, including the current drive over the Employee Free Choice Act.

We do not want to be an amendment to anyone’s legislation. Not the Employee Free Choice Act, not the NLRA, or anything else. WE WANT A LAW THAT SPEAKS TO OUR UNIQUE SITUATION.

Even if there would be those that would counter for inclusion under the NLRA, there are immediate glaring realities making such a law impractical or impossible. The historical response time for the NLRB to respond and conduct an election would never be possible for a 5-6 week cucumber harvest, or a 6-7 week tomato harvest. Even it that were possible an unfair labor practice complaint would run into the same problem. Needless to say, anyone in his/her sound mind would conclude that something different would be required.

This does take nothing away from the fact that the debate of historical discrimination and measuring agricultural workers on a different standard is a debate that must finally be waged. We must not continue to stand back, wring our hands over what the opposition might do and end up doing nothing. The fear that the opposition might take this to push a law that is worse than nothing, similar to what they did in Arizona, is understandable, but this is not a provincial debate but rather a national dialogue that will play differently in Brooklyn and Chicago than in Yuma.

FULL story at link.

[dcsmart]

1. GO DSA!......K & R