The Farmworker Justice Petition for New York State

To:  New York State residents

If you agree with New York Times editorial April 5 and the Daily News editorial May 16th that our state legislature should pass and Governor sign into law the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act to make sure that farmworkers are protected under the same state labor laws that apply to all other workers-- for a day of rest, overtime pay, disability insurance, and bargaining collectively-- then sign on to this petition, pass it along to all you know, call Gov. Paterson/state legislators toll-free at (877) 255-9417, and send a letter to Dutchess County Legislators at countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us.

Joel Tyner
County Legislator
Clinton/Rhinebeck
324 Browns Pond Road
Staatsburg, NY 12580
DutchessDemocracy.blogspot.com
joeltyner@earthlink.net
(845) 876-2488

[see: RuralMigrantMinistry.org, JusticeforFarmworkers.org,
www.assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A1867, www.assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S2247]

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It's not just the Times and Daily News-- quite a few organizations from across the state have also endorsed the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act (A.1867/S.2247)-- including the Rural & Migrant Ministry, Dutchess County Clergy Association, New York Community of Churches, New York State Catholic Conference, New York State AFL-CIO, United Food and Commercial Workers, Civil Service Employees Association, New York State United Teachers, 1199 SEIU, Service Employees International Union Local 200 United, Union of Needle trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), American Baptist of New York State, New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, New York State Conference of the United Church of Christ, New York Annual Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, Episcopal Diocese of New York, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Christ Episcopal Church (Poughkeepsie), Christ Episcopal Church (Red Hook), Episcopal Church of the Messiah (Rhinebeck), Episcopal Church of the Regeneration (Pine Plains), First Presbyterian Church (Pleasant Valley), First Presbyterian Church (Poughkeepsie), First Presbyterian Church (Wappingers Falls), Freedom Plains Presbyterian Church (Poughkeepsie), Grace Episcopal Church (Millbrook), New Hackensack Reformed Church (Wappingers Falls), Christ Episcopal Church (Poughkeepsie), St. James Episcopal Church (Hyde Park), St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church (Staatsburg), St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (Pleasant Valley), St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (Poughkeepsie), United Methodist Church of Fishkill (Administrative Board), United Methodist Women on Christ United Methodist Church (Beacon), New York Immigration Coalition, The Independent Farmworkers Center, Farmworker Legal Services of New York, Farmworker Women’s Institute, Bard College Fair Labor Organizing Committee, Bard College Migrant Labor Project, Vassar College Hunger Action, Vassar College Student Activist Union, and the Dutchess Greens Action Group.

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"Bills Seek Better Conditions for Farm Workers"
by Larry Hertz (Poughkeepsie Journal May 12, 2009)
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009905120316

Before you take the first bite of your dinner tonight, pause for a moment and think about how it got to your table.

Its journey started with a farm worker - a man, a woman or, in some cases, a child - who picked that tomato off the vine before it went into your pasta sauce or loaded those apples onto a truck before they were cooked in that pie.

Few folks work harder than farm workers, and few are rewarded less for their labors.

Most of us are paid overtime if we work more than 40 hours per week. Most farm workers are not.

Most of us are covered under the state's disability insurance program if we are hurt on the job. Most farm workers are not.

Most of our work places are subject to federal health and safety standards. Most places where farm workers toil are not.

For years, farm workers and their advocates in New York, including members of the Rural Migrant Ministry in New Paltz, have been working to remedy these inequities. They'll take another shot at it today at a rally in Albany, urging lawmakers to pass the Farm Worker Fair Labor Practices Act.

"The law doesn't ask for any special treatment for farm workers," said the Rev. Richard Witt, executive director of the Rural Migrant Ministry. "It just seeks to give these workers the same protections and benefits as everyone else."

Witt said he was cautiously optimistic the legislation would pass this year.

"It was approved by the Assembly for the past few years but has always been blocked the Senate," Witt said. "This year, it seems to be a bipartisan effort, with 21 Senate sponsors, including three Republicans."

Asked why he believed farm workers had been neglected for so long, Witt said he thought it might be because they are largely invisible.

"Farm workers are out of our sight, for the most part," he said. "If you're trying to raise money for cancer research, almost everyone knows someone who has had cancer. Not many of us have farm workers in our family."

If you'd like to help Witt and the Rural Migrant Ministry bring justice and equality to the folks who bring food to your table, contact your state legislators and ask them to support Assembly Bill 1867 and Senate Bill 2247.

"We're not against farmers, and we're not against agriculture," Witt said. "It's not about good growers or bad growers. It's about a system that's just unfair."

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From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/opinion/06mon1.html ...

New York Times editorial: "Farm Workers’ Rights, 70 Years Overdue"

Published: April 5, 2009

It is more than bank failures and rising unemployment that give these troubled times echoes of the 1930s. An unfinished labor battle from the New Deal is being waged again.

The goal is to win basic rights that farm and domestic workers were denied more than 70 years ago, when the Roosevelt administration won major reforms protecting other workers in areas like overtime and disability pay, days of rest and union organizing.

That inequality is a perverse holdover from the Jim Crow era. Segregationist Southern Democrats in Congress could not abide giving African-Americans, who then made up most of the farm and domestic labor force, an equal footing in the workplace with whites. President Roosevelt’s compromise simply wrote workers in those industries out of the New Deal.

They were thus sidelined from the labor movement, with predictable results. Though the Dixiecrats have all long since died or repented, the injustice they spawned has never been corrected. Poverty, brutal working conditions and legally sanctioned discrimination persist for new generations of laborers, who are now mostly Latino immigrants.

In New York, advocates are pressing for passage of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act, which would give these workers the rights that others have long taken for granted, as well as seek badly needed improvements in safety and sanitary conditions in the fields. Domestic workers, meanwhile, are seeking a “Bill of Rights” in Albany covering things like overtime pay, cost-of-living raises and health benefits.

A separate effort begun last week seeks to end these stubbornly lingering injustices for workers in all states by fixing federal law. It was announced on Cesar Chavez’s birthday by old lions of his movement, including Jerry Cohen, who as general counsel of the United Farm Workers helped win passage of a landmark 1975 California law that secured unprecedented rights for the state’s farm workers. The campaign has been joined by a growing number of labor groups and immigrant advocates, like Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, which represents migrant workers in the Midwest and North Carolina.

In both campaigns, advocates are counting on a changed political landscape to help their cause. But even with Democrats controlling the New York Legislature, the farm worker bill has languished. It faces fierce opposition from growers and has been eclipsed by the entropy and fiscal crises of Gov. David Paterson’s Albany. In Washington, labor advocates are preoccupied by different battles, like the fight for the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act. Other long-sought immigration reforms have taken a back seat to the budget and health care.

But farm workers are used to long, hard slogs and pitiless heat and cold, with justice as their distant but inevitable destination. The advocates see President Obama and Governor Paterson as ideal candidates to take them there, and are not about to give up. “Any just national labor law reform must include farm workers and domestics,” Mr. Cohen wrote to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, stating an obvious and compelling truth. “If not now, when?”

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"Harvest Kennedy's legacy: State Senate Must Pass Farmworker Rights Bill"
Saturday, May 16th 2009 Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/05/16/2009-05-16_harvest_kennedys_legacy_state_senate_must_pass_farmworker_rights_bill.html

Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, has added her voice and the spirit of her slain father to the fight for equal rights for farmworkers.

Her presence in Albany, where the Legislature appears to be inching toward a historic breakthrough, is most welcome. Because this is the year when fieldhands must, at last, gain the labor protections afforded to virtually all other workers in New York.

Led by Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Assembly is again poised to pass a bill to do just that. Gov. Paterson says he stands ready to sign it. The final piece of the puzzle is the state Senate, where the legislation has languished.

Its shift from Republican to Democratic control has brought hope. The obligation to lift hope into reality is Majority Leader Malcolm Smith's.

It has been an enduring shame that, unlike almost everyone else who earns a paycheck here, New York farmworkers are not guaranteed a day off per week or overtime pay. They are denied the right to organize.

This page has long called for reform. Last November, we opined that passage of a farmworker bill would be a greater tribute to RFK than renaming the Triborough Bridge in his honor.

We recalled that he fought for "the downtrodden, including migrant farmworkers who lived in miserable conditions on substandard wages," and that he "championed the fieldhands and their families in an alliance with legendary labor leader César Chávez."

Kerry Kennedy answered the call with an appearance at the Capitol, where she quoted from a speech of her father's: "When your children and grandchildren take their place in America, when you look at them, you will say, 'I did this. I was there at the point of difficulty and danger.' And though you may be old and bent from many years of labor, no man will stand taller than you when you say, 'I marched with Cesar.'"

The farmworker bill has 28 Senate co-sponsors, from both parties, upstate and down. An additional 17 senators have pledged their support or backed the legislation in the past. That adds up to 45 votes in a chamber of 62 members. Passage appears guaranteed, provided Smith puts the bill on the floor without weakening it.

He and his colleagues would do well to be guided by Kerry Kennedy's words in remembering her father:

"Nothing will bring you more pride and honor in your life. This will be a real way to honor him and to honor his memory."

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From http://www.justiceforfarmworkers.org/pages/releases.html ...

For Immediate Release: May 12, 2009     
Contact: Jordan Wells 845/ 891-7046
( farmworkerjustice@gmail.com ) or Martha Schultz- 518/ 698-3365

KERRY KENNEDY, FARMWORKERS RALLY FOR EQUAL RIGHTS
Seventy-five years since New Deal, farmworkers still excluded from labor protections—but on the verge of a breakthrough

Albany, NY – Today, farmworkers and a statewide array of faith and labor and student allies including human rights activist Kerry Kennedy gathered at 1 p.m. in Albany’s West Capitol Park to call for passage of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A1867/S2247), a bill that would grant farmworkers rights equal to other New York workers. The rally was a colorful affair, which included a mariachi band, prayer vigil, folkloric dancers, large puppets and street theater.

"Sub-poverty wages, sickness and disease from poor health protections, … abuses and humiliation— these are the conditions that exist when workers have no recourse to legal protection. The Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act will provide the legal remedy to injustice,” said Kerry Kennedy, Founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights.

According to New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes, "The time has come for farm workers to enjoy the same rights, protections and benefits as all other workers in this state. It is a travesty that farm workers are still treated as second-class citizens. If we are to consider ourselves a progressive, enlightened society, we must raise the standard of living, and quality of life of those who have the least."

The Rev. Richard Witt, Director of Rural and Migrant Ministry, which coordinates the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign, said, “We have been blessed to be nourished by the labor of our brothers and sisters; and yet we respond by denying them a place at the table. When voices cry out with excuses as to why farmworkers shouldn't be welcome at the table, our voices become all too easily silenced.

“Now is the time for us, as people rooted in a faith tradition of justice and human dignity, to stand up and welcome farmworkers equally to the table. As people of faith we must urge the passing the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act. Christian Scripture calls Christians to ‘love with all of our heart, soul, and mind.’"

Over 130 faith groups and religious communities have endorsed passage of the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act, along with dozens of student, community and labor organizations.

“We are in the twenty-first century. But when it comes to human rights and basic labor protection for farmworkers we are still living in the Middle Ages. Even though slavery was officially abolished in this country, it does not mean that it does not exist,” said Irma, a farmworker from Western NY.

According to Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, “These past several years, it has been my honor and privilege to work with advocates and my fellow colleagues in the Assembly to pass the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act. In 2009, farmworkers must have the same collective bargaining rights, worker’s compensation rights, unemployment benefits, and other basic rights allocated to workers in other states. They have been left behind long enough. This is no longer justifiable for 2009.”

According to New York State Senator George Onorato, the chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, “Farmworkers spend long, hard hours in the fields, orchards and barns of New York State to help put food on our tables and contribute to our state’s agricultural economy. They provide essential services to our farming industry, performing often arduous work under all kinds of conditions that put them at risk of exposure to pesticides, extreme weather and other risks in the course of their day. I hope that this will be a year when the Legislature and Governor can come together to expand worker rights for these vitally important employees.”

According to New York Senator Neil Breslin, "Establishing basic workplace protections to farmworkers is long overdue in New York state. Farmworkers contribute greatly to our economy with their hard work and dedication. We must work to ensure equal rights among all laborers."

With 28 Senate cosponsors from the City, Long Island and upstate—from both parties—the bill is just shy of a clear majority. Several other senators have pledged their vote. The Assembly has passed the bill three times in recent years.

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"New York Farmworkers Rally for Equality"
Liana Foxvog, National Organizer, SweatFree Communities
http://laborrightsblog.typepad.com/international_labor_right/2009/05/new-york-farmworkers-rally-for-equality.html

"We sometimes work 12-16 hours a day -- whatever a person can handle," said Mateo, a farmworker from western New York. He joined with fellow farmworkers and allies from around the state at the State Capitol in Albany yesterday to demand equal rights for farmworkers.

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 exempts farmworkers from the protections it grants other workers. Rural & Migrant Ministry is leading the effort to change that by promoting the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A.1867/S.2247), which would eliminate these exclusions in New York.

"That farmworkers are denied disability insurance, a weekly day of rest, overtime pay, and the right to bargain collectively is a moral outrage," said Assemblyman Sheldon Silver at a rally in front of the State Capitol.

"There are rights in our country and they should apply to farmworkers as well," said Kerry Kennedy.

Before marching to the Capitol, a couple hundred people gathered together for a service with stories from farmworkers, song, and a participatory bilingual litany, which included these lines:

We confess that as we go through each day, we hardly ever think about those who labor to grow and harvest our food.
God forgive us, we pray.

We confess that when we walk
through the grocery store,
our bottom line is not justice
for those who labor in the fields,
but finding the lowest price, and
we contribute to the pressure put on
workers to accept unacceptable conditions.
God forgive us, we pray.

Our neglect and lack of awareness
helps silence the voices of farmworkers
and we confess our complicity in the
injustices that they must endure.
God forgive us, we pray.

We confess that when we vote to elect our legislators, too often our participation in our democracy ends there, and we fail to challenge our representatives to change the laws that relegate farmworkers to the very edges of our society.
God forgive us, we pray.

Irma, a former farmworker who can no longer work due to injury spoke about the fear that farmworkers live with. "The situation with immigration agents is horrible. We can't go out," she said. Two of her family members were deported in immigration raids. "I have to live all my time inside in fear so that I'm not taken away," she said.

"We want to work. We're not here to take your work away. We just want our rights," Irma said in a meeting with a representative from State Senator Martin Dilan's office.

The Assembly has passed the bill three times previously. Organizers with Rural & Migrant Ministry said they are close to winning majority support in the Senate as well.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The The Farmworker Justice Petition for New York State Petition to New York State residents was created by members of the Real Majority Project and written by Dutchess County Legislature Environmental Committee Chair Joel Tyner (joeltyner@earthlink.net).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.