Free Republic

It’s taken nearly five years of administrative battles, legislative interference, and lawsuits, but the California state government has finally counted farm workers’ votes in a union election at the state’s largest fruit grower, Fresno-based Gerawan Farming. The final verdict, tallied on Tuesday, explains why the Jerry Brown administration and Democratic statehouse leaders did everything in their power to destroy the votes without counting them. The margin: 1,098 workers voted “no” to the United Farm Workers, with only 197 workers voting in favor of UFW representation. There still are 635 disputed ballots, but even the math geniuses in Sacramento can see...

Fasten your seatbelts for one of the strangest union stories to come over the transom in a while. Back in 2013 (which is five years ago, for those who skipped math class), out in Fresno, California, the workers at farming corporation Gerawan Farming held a vote to determine whether or not they would decertify their membership in United Farm Workers (UFW), the union which had been representing them. The vote was held, and then… nothing. The union refused to release the results and even convinced a court arbiter that they could do so. They went on acting as the...

MIAMI – Union leader Dolores Huerta prefers a woman in the White House in 2016, saying that “there’s a lot at stake for Latinos” if one of the current Republican hopefuls wins the election, even if he has “a Latino name or speaks Spanish.” The tireless 85-year-old activist said in an interview with Efe that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) “took two steps back” when he could have used his “influence to pass immigration reform” in 2013. “Some of those candidates who are Latinos in reality don’t represent the values of the Latino community, who for the most part are working...

KEENE, Calif. (AP) — Maria Ybarra's trailer is one of two left on the property that for over two decades was home to Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez and farmworkers like Ybarra who made up his movement. Today, the foothills of the Tehachapi mountains continue to house the United Farm Workers of America headquarters and memorials to Chavez, though farmworkers no longer live there. On Monday, during a campaign swing through California, President Barack Obama will designate 105 acres of the property as a national monument within the National Park system — a move that could help shore up support...

Barack Obama gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Dolores Huerta, an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. During the ceremony today President Obama admitted he stole her slogan “Yes we can!” for his 2008 campaign. (Video at link) ---snip---...Dolores Huerta, an 82-year-old labor activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers union. Huerta is also an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. DSA describes itself as “the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.” Huerta has claimed, “Republicans hate Latinos,” and has spoken fondly of Hugo...

An insightful article in the sophisticated leftwing site, Counterpunch, further strips Ms. Shirley Sherrod of the martyr's rags she has been wearing since first exposed and then un-exposed as a racist Ag official two weeks back. The author, Ron Wilkins, had worked under an assumed name at Sherrod's New Communities Incorporated (NCI) in the 1970s. A former organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Wilkins had been tasked with discovering the reasons for "NCI's continued poor performance." What he discovered was that at NCI "the young and old worked long hours with few breaks, the pay averaged sixty-seven cents an...

The American Civil Liberties Union and the United Farm Workers Union filed a lawsuit this morning against Cal-OSHA, accusing it of not being capable of protecting the state's 650,000 farm laborers from heat injury and death. The suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court credits occupational safety officials with stepping up enforcement in the wake of fatalities last year. But it says employers remain out of compliance with regulations. It cites as evidence six farmworker deaths last year -- three more than Cal-OSHA recognizes -- injuries of farmworkers this year and widespread violations of laws that Cal-OSHA inspectors have found...

The United Farm Workers union has signed an agreement with a Mexican state to help recruit guest workers to labor on U.S. farms legally – and under union contract. "If this is something that's going to be utilized more in the future, then we've got to get in on it," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said of the H-2A guest worker program. "We're looking for enlightened employers who are willing to sit down and do this with us." The agreement was signed in early April in the western state of Michoacan, which has a long history of migration to California and...

Obama, who has struggled to overcome Clinton's significant advantage among Latino voters in state after state, sought to one-up his rival for the Democratic presidential nod by joining the call for creating a national holiday to commemorate the father of the United Farm Workers. "That's why I support the call to make Cesar Chavez's birthday a national holiday. It's time to recognize the contributions of this American icon to the ongoing efforts to perfect our union." Eight states commemorate Chavez' birthday in some fashion. In California, all state offices are closed, but local government facilities and public schools are open....

Labor officials say process allows firms to intimidate, but industry leaders call bill 'undemocratic.' With the farm labor movement in its infancy, legendary organizer Cesar Chavez won a major victory in 1975 with the passage of a state law that guaranteed secret ballot elections for farmworker unions.Now the union Chavez helped found is fighting against secret ballots, claiming the process allows for company intimidation -- and ultimately, union losses.A bill backed by the United Farm Workers union would allow for workers to sign cards instead of cast ballots in union elections. If a majority of workers sign up, the union...

It was a news flash from the Phil Angelides for Governor campaign. "United Farm Workers Endorses Phil Angelides for Governor," the e-mail was headlined. "We believe you will be a Governor who will strongly represent the interests of farm workers and all the people of California," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez wrote in a letter quoted by the Angelides campaign. "You have shown your firm commitment to the right of farm workers to improve their lives." That was huge news for the Angelides campaign, since the UFW and their founder, Cesar Chavez, are icons to the voters the state treasurer needs...

WASHINGTON - The United Farm Workers union has left the AFL-CIO and will join a group of breakaway unions known as the Change to Win Coalition, in a move the UFW hopes will boost recruiting efforts, officials said Thursday. The UFW, with about 27,000 members, joins the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, UNITE HERE and the Carpenters in forming the dissident Change To Win Coalition. The Laborers International Union of North America also is part of the new federation, but has not left the AFL-CIO. "We view this as a positive step in...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The small farm workers' union founded by labor hero Cesar Chavez joined a coalition of labor groups demanding changes in the AFL-CIO as the 50-year-old federation inched closer Friday to breaking up. The United Farm Workers union, based outside Bakersfield, Calif., brings to seven the number of unions in the Change to Win Coalition. Four of the coalition unions have threatened to bolt the AFL-CIO - the Teamsters and service employees, along with food and commercial workers and hotel, restaurant, retail, textile and laundry employees. The UFW, organized in 1962 and now consisting of 27,000 members, intends...

<p>KEENE, Calif. - Leaders of the United Farm Workers union announced Sunday they are endorsing John Kerry's presidential bid.</p> <p>The Democratic senator from Massachusetts has been a friend of the union for decades, said president Arturo Rodriguez. With victories last month in Iowa and New Hampshire, Kerry is also the front runner to take on President Bush.</p>

<p>In California, the state with the largest illegal immigrant population, President Bush's proposal to create a temporary worker program drew immediate criticism from all sides.</p> <p>Anti-immigrant groups joined janitorial unions and other stakeholders blasting the proposal for doing too much or too little to help the state's roughly 3 million undocumented immigrants.</p>