On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:11 PM, Maru Mora Villalpando Maru Mora Villalpando Latino Advocacy latinoadvocacy.org 206-251-6658 From: Rosalinda C2C Reply-To: Date: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:28 PM What’s really at Stake? (Tomas Madrigal, Co-Authored by Marco) Bow, WA- July 25, 2013 – How do we negotiate a false dichotomy that pits better working and living conditions for farmworkers against a call for viable local farms? For many of the farmworkers who are currently on their third day of their second work stoppage at Sakuma Brothers Farms, this false dichotomy ignores the simple truth, that the fate of the growers and the farmworkers are bound together. The farmworkers contend that if they are treated poorly, and offered low wages, their performance as highly skilled pickers will also suffer, negatively impacting the growers. This is the core of their appeal, that their dignity should be made whole through fair trade wages along with common decency and respectful treatment at their workplace and homes at the hands of company representatives. To gain a better perspective, it is important to understand what is at stake in this particular farmworker struggle. This past week Marco, an 8 year old resident of Labor Camp 2 has been keeping me company. The photographs featured in this article are taken from his perspective. According to Marco and his friends, what they enjoy about living in the labor camp are simple things. They like that there is a forest behind their camp, and a park for them to play in. They like that they have the ability to pick blackberries to eat whenever they feel the urge. They also enjoy the food vendors who come directly to the camp as well as the “gabachos” who come to give away food and trade candies for hugs. They like living in the labor camp, they just wish that their cabins came with bathrooms, because the out door latrines are scary in the dark. The youth said that when the summer harvest ends, they usually go to live in an apartment where they spend their time indoors, and that some families go far far away. Marco reports that his parents are not working at the moment. He claims that it is because there is a problem. He said that his parents are not treated nice, that some people are mean. The treatment that the parents of these youth receive at the workplace and in their homes shapes in turn the way that the youth are treated, and the way that the youth treat each other. Astute observers, after everyone goes home, the youth role play the behavior that was modeled by those who came to their camp from the outside. Whether that behavior was charity, disrespect, racism, or perhaps dignity. On my way out last night, I saw Marco and his friends play in the empty grass field at the entrance of their home, where an encampment had been erected earlier that day, the youth were waving picket signs that read “respect,” pumping their fists and chanting “¡SI SE PUEDE!” yes we can!. This is what is at stake. Supporting the indigenous farm workers’ struggle in Burlington, WA State Reply-To: [email protected] Update: Sakuma Workers’ Strike Rosalinda Guillen of Community 2 Community. Photo by Erika Schulz Moderator’s Note: On July 16, I reported on a historic strike by Triqui, Mixtec, and other indigenous and Mexican workers at the Sakuma Brothers agribusiness corporation in Burlington, Washington. The strike is now in its third week and is going strong despite efforts by the growers to use misinformation to manipulate local public opinion and the use of strikebreaking “labor advocates” that included a Latino that is apparently a contract employee of the University of Washington Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMAD) – more on this later. In this update, I am posting the entirety of a letter prepared by Rosalinda Guillen of the grassroots food justice organization, Community 2 Community of Bellingham, WA. As a matter of full disclosure: Ms. Guillen serves on the Board of Directors of The Acequia Institute, a non-profit charitable foundation that I founded and serve as President. The views expressed in this letter are a matter of personal reflection and do not necessarily reflect the views of policies of the Institute or its Board of Directors. I will continue to follow this important struggle with additional reports as information is made available to us by the strike organizers and supporters. As for the use of a UW employee to pressure the workers to give up the strike, I serve notice that I will be lodging a complaint against this person with the Office of the Ombudsperson and the OMAD. Employees of the UW have no business interfering with the peaceful exercise of Constitutional rights of freedom of assembly and free speech granted all persons within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. It is totally unconscionable that this UW employee has been allowed to continue working at the University while at the same time selling his vendido services to a ruthless corporate exploiter of farm workers. Shame on the UW for allowing this person to interfere with the exercise of workers’ rights to struggle for their human rights and workplace democracy. LETTER BY ROSALINDA GUILLEN Supporting the indigenous farm workers’ struggle at Sakuma Brothers July 26, 2013 Autonomy, is not something we ought to ask for or that anyone can give us. It is something we have, despite everything. Its other name is dignity. –Don Gregorio, Tribu Yaqui, as quoted in Gustavo Esteva Dear Community: Familias Unidas Por La Justicia have made it very clear to the public and the employer that they represent themselves. I am writing on behalf of Community to Community Development (C2C) to attempt to address concerns; continue to bring supporters and activists in the Latino and community at large together in unity; and grow a critical struggle for all of us. On July 11, 2013 I received a call from community leaders, letting me know that I was needed by the farm workers at Sakuma Farms and that I should arrive before 2:00pm. I accepted the call to action and Angelica Villa and I arrived at 1:45pm, the look on the faces of the farm workers’ said “what took you so long?” It is hard to believe that up to that point I did not know these families, that it has only been 16 days; in that short time we have built a movement together. I want to share what I have had the privilege to witness during Familias Unidas Por La Justicia’s negotiations with their employer, Sakuma Brothers Farm. Workplace Democracy Ever since I encountered the autonomous communities of Porto Allegre, Brazil during the World Social Forum, I learned that it was necessary to make it the mission of C2C to empower farmworker families to lead themselves, because they are the only ones who know what they need and they are the only ones who can sustain any change that is accomplished. Since then I have taken leadership locally, nationally and internationally in many farm worker and food justice movements. My belief that farm workers can lead themselves has been validated many times; the leadership of Angelica Villa, a farm worker from Lynden is a local example. I have witnessed a deep democratic process practiced by Familias Unidas Por La Justicia, based upon transparency, mutual respect, and face to face communication. Not only were major decisions about the negotiations made in front of the entire community, but they were also translated from Spanish to Mixteco and Triqui to make sure that everyone understood. Furthermore, Triqui and Mixteco speaking farmworkers recorded Spanish language conversations on their cellular phones in order to document and play back important decisions for people who were not present. I am deeply grateful for the honor I was given by this community to witness their process; allowed me to use my experience and skills to their benefit; stand with them and send their message out to the public. Farmworker Autonomy As an organizer for the UFW, I came to a deeper understanding of the limits of organized labor. The heavily regulated process of collective bargaining, for example, has lost a lot of its punch as a tool to secure worker’s rights. This has to do with corporate initiated structural changes, anti-union legislation and legal precedents that have been set since then, Wisconsin being the most recent example. Triqui, Yaqui, and other indigenous workers at Sakuma Brothers. Photo by Erika Schulz By the 1970s it was clear, as we learned from Cesar Chavez’ struggle, that farmworker communities were excluded from these processes in the first place, agriculture was exempt from many of the gains made by the American industrial working class in the 1950s. Cesar Chavez changed that in California, and the UFW contract I helped win at Chateau St. Michelle, for example, remains very lonely. But I came away with invaluable experience learned in the best way possible, in the struggle for a union contract that ended in victory. I believe that one of the reasons that this struggle in particular, the struggle of the over 200 members of Familias Unidas Por La Justicia, is getting so much attention, is that it is unprecedented in a time of deep fundamental oppression of labor in agriculture. Especially because these farmworkers are indigenous people it is my opinion that we have a tendency to not believe in them, or truly listen to them, because of our own internalized oppression and racism. These Triqui and Mixteco speaking migrant farmworker families, lived “en el olvido” (forgotten) until they took action because no one heard their truths, saying enough, ¡Ya Basta! On Privilege Let’s face it, this is not just about the money, this is about something much more fundamental, this struggle is about dignity. This is what all of us as farm workers have also been asking for, the difference is they took a courageous action and risked all for their dignity. When is the last time we risked our comfort for dignity in a public and organized way? I find it discouraging that people in our community, like the employer, also think that these workers don’t know what they are doing, nor that they know what they want. This is reflected by the tendency of certain people to believe the company line, a public relations fiction spun by well-paid labor consultants; to cast doubt upon the public testimony regarding the plight of migrant farmworkers, in their own words articulating their recognition that they are being disrespected, mistreated, and exploited and demanding a change. Sakuma Brothers Farms is no longer a family farm, it is a $6.1 million, vertically integrated agricultural corporation. Even director Richard Sakuma lamented this loss. Sakuma Brothers Farms paid three labor consultants that we know of, Ermelindo Escobedo, Raul Calvo, and Mario Vargas to try to break the unity of these farmworkers. I can only assume it was to leave things the way they have always been. We know all too well that the way that things have always been is oppressive, many of us have grown up in these oppressive conditions. I understand oppression as the systematic exclusion of farmworkers from the promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” many of us are still excluded. In the agricultural industry this has been accomplished via poor wages, mistreatment, hostility, segregation, and the segmentation of the labor force. These are the very things that these farmworkers address in their list of grievances, their struggle is for justice. They know what needs to be done and they are the only ones who can sustain that struggle. Even so, there are people who continue to intervene or who try to lead farmworkers. The Messiah or White Savior complex is the idea that indigenous people are just waiting for someone to come rescue them from their suffering. I have seen this behavior all too often, especially when it comes to farm workers, I believe many people think I do not know what I’m doing because I’m a farm worker also. It is patronizing and it gets in the way of the democratic process that the farmworkers have advanced on their own, without you or me. We must all learn when to lead and when to let others lead and this is a time to let these workers lead us and there is no way to predict what the results will be. People are saying the workers “barricaded” the labor camp, intimidated and threatened other workers, that Community to Community is leading this group down a violent path. What actually happened was not a barricade nor violence, it was a picket line, a legally protected first amendment right. A picket line is a form of protest deployed when an employer refuses to negotiate with employees over a labor dispute. It is a non-violent tactic the workers used to encourage each other, maintain solidarity and to draw public attention to their cause. It is what many “activists” have been lamenting never happens in Skagit County! And when it does, instead of showing real Solidarity and celebrating, community activists start buying in to the anti-worker consultant’s public attacks on the workers and the organizers. Towards the Horizon As a 10 year-old farm worker in Skagit County I witnessed my father organize the Guadalupanos Club at the Church of the Assumption in Mt. Vernon in 1962, later towards the end of his life he tirelessly lobbied the Tulip Festival organizers county wide to honor tulip field farm workers by using his painting as an official poster for the festival. In 1995 his painting was finally accepted unfortunately he did not live to see it. Having grown up in LaConner, where my Mother Anita Guillen still lives in our family home, and where Guillens gather regularly, I find it especially disturbing to be informed that local activists in Skagit County are publicly calling me an outsider, and criticizing this new and exciting farm worker movement because of my presence in it; and worse having private conversations with some of the elected committee members attacking me personally. It is to the workers credit and honorable character that they recognize this as petty and destructive to their efforts to improve the lives of all the families involved. Courtesy of Káráni I have also been told that people are having private conversations and planning meetings because they think I’m not collaborative and trying to do this all by myself and excluding local activists. I’m not doing this all by myself, there are many farm worker leaders working on this, Angelica Villa is one, but also the elected worker committee and State and national seasoned and accomplished movement supporters. These actions from the community show a lack of understanding of organizing. As an experienced organizer I’m very familiar with this, there is a difference between providing services and “education” and leadership building for creating dynamic changes in structural power. The latter takes more courage, more resources and carries more risk, because it requires taking sides publicly. In these struggles for changing powerful structures like the one the rich agricultural industry has built requires taking sides – I always take the side of the workers and so does the organization I have built. Farmworkers are organizing themselves into a powerful collective force. It is something new, that many of us are not familiar with, because it is based upon these migrant farmworkers inherited cultural practices, cognitive schemes and structural support systems. This is why we must not disrespect their autonomy. We must not disrespect their process, we must follow their lead, and move forward together. Opportunities to change our world do not come often, leaders rooted in our traditions and cultures do not present themselves often. I feel very fortunate that this has occurred more than once for me, in Sunnyside with farm workers from Michoacan and Jalisco in the early 90’s and now farm workers from Oaxaca. I believe with all my soul that farm workers can fully lead themselves and can transform the agricultural industry in the U.S. into a just and fair food system. We just need to give them a chance. It is my hope we will all be able to move forward together to ensure a victory for Familias Unidas por La Justicia. They have asked me to not abandon them and I have given them my sacred word I will not and nothing can move me from this struggle except the families of Familias Unidas por la Justicia asking me to. Sincerely, Rosalinda Guillen Executive Director - Community to Community
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 06:51:23 +0000
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