> Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 03:04:46 -0500
> Subject: [fla-left] [protest report] Tampa: Justice for Farmworkers
>
> This article is taken from the June 1999 issue of the Industrial Worker,
> the newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World, http://www.iww.org/
>
> Gainesville IWW GMB: gainesvilleiww at hotmail.com
> Orlando IWW Group: 4justice at prodigy.net
> Tampa IWW Group: sf1rj at scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us
>
> For information on the Farm Labor Organizing Committee:
> http://www.iupui.edu/~floc/
> For information on FLOC's boycott of Mt. Olive Pickles:
> http://www.iupui.edu/~floc/nc.htm
>
> FLOC Fight for Humane Conditions for Farmworkers Continues
>
> Union Si!
>
> Bearing an eagle silhouette, and the words "Hasta La Victoria," the
> red, black, and yellow banners of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee
> (FLOC) flapped in vivid opposition to a backdrop of grey skies over Tampa,
> Florida. On this Saturday morning, the sky yielded a soft rain: a release
> from the week-long heat. Fernando Cuevas Jr. sheltered his younger
> brother under his umbrella, while organizer Dan Belgrad offered to share
> his umbrella with a new supporter who arrived at the Food Lion
> supermaket at 10 am. Shoppers, used to living in a land of perpetual
> sunshine, hurried to their cars. FLOC organizers decided shoppers
> would not be receptive to flyers and picket signs as they dodged
> the drizzle so the rally was postponed.
>
> In the fields, Fernando Cuevas Sr. observed, rain changes nothing. If there
> are cucumbers to pick, they pick. If it rains, they work. If the sun beats
> down,
> they work. The workdays are long: ten, twelve, fourteen hour days are
> common. It's a marriage of sorts, this relationship between
> farmworker and field, between men, women,children, who live in squalid,
> crowded quarters on the land they work until it's time to move onto the
> next crop. Asked if farmworkers have employer-provided health insurance,
> Cuevas replied they don't need it, explaining that pickers don't get sick.
> "We can't afford to," he said, adding that if they get sick, they work anyway.
> Organizer Teresa Ivey, a Tampa activist and nurse practioner agreed.
> Ivey works at a Plant City clinic where many of her patients are migrant
> farm workers' children. They don't go to the clinic themselves, she said,
> of the adult farm workers. "They bring their children."
>
> "They (the government) are federally subsidizing what employers
> should be paying for," Cuevas said.
>
> Employers in Southern right-to-work states like North Carolina,
> where Mt. Olive Pickles is based, are openly hostile to unions.
> While organizing in North Carolina, Cuevas says his life was
> threatened by growers. He was told, "The Yankees won the war,
> but us Southerners never freed the slaves. We use them now
> as sharecroppers." Eigthy percent of North Carolina farm
> workers are Hispanic.
>
> Farm workers in non-union South ern states are paid under a
> complicated piece-work system that many workers don't understand.
> Without a contract, they are open to exploitation. "There is no
> enforcement to make sure workers get paid the minimum,"
> said Cuevas. In contrast, union workers in states like Ohio
> and Michigan are guaranteed a minimum of $6 an hour.
> In 1993, sharecropping in Ohio and Michigan was eliminated by
> agreement, and farm workers became employees with rights.
>
> Cuevas said their goal is to "organize the South." FLOC has
> fought this war before. In 1978, the Unionclashedwiththe Campbell
> Soup Company when Ohio farm workers went on strike in fields
> contracted to that company. At issue were sub-minimum wages,
> exclusion from protective legislation, poor sanitation, health care,
> and housing. A national consumer boycott of Campbell and its
> major supporters eventually succeeded in securing a contract
> in February 1986, between FLOC, Campbell, and35 family farmers.
> Contracts with Heinz, Vlasic, and 49 growers followed in 1987.
> Though for the moment rained out, FLOC promises to be back.
> On this unlikely day, the union picked up four new supporters.
> More pickets are planned for June and July in various South
> Florida locations.
>
> Cris D'Angelo-Tampa