Jump to full article: Toledo (OH) Blade, 2008-08-10
Author: JC REINDL / BLADE STAFF WRITER
Intro: Worst of all, it was barely 8 a.m. There were still nearly 10 hours of tobacco picking ahead in the humidity-drenched fields of North Carolina, which leads the nation in heat-related farm worker deaths.
And so began a typical day for the 61-year-old labor organizer during his week-long visit to a tobacco farm that concluded Aug. 4 with a return home to Sylvania Township.
In essence, his trip was a fact-finding mission, one that involved as much participation as observation. Mr. Velásquez lived and worked alongside a group of about 14 migrant workers, picking tobacco plants at the most brutal time of the year. . . .
“My feeling is that if I’m going to represent somebody, I better do the work that they’re doing to know what they’re going through,” he said last week upon his return.
The work in the fields was utterly exhausting. . . .
The founder and president of the Toledo-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Mr. Velásquez is focusing on securing improvement in pay, benefits, and working conditions for the thousands of temporary guest workers who journey to the United States for seasonal jobs in tobacco fields. He would not disclose his location in North Carolina, citing concerns about growers’ relationships with RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co.
The majority of tobacco field workers in North Carolina have their permanent homes in Mexico. Some are employed there legally for the growing season through the U.S. government’s H2-A agricultural work visa program. But many others are undocumented.
Depending on the farm they’re at, they are paid from $50 to $150 a day, according to Mr. Velásquez. .. . .
In his view, tobacco workers struggle at the bottom of a three-tiered production chain that’s presided over by agricultural corporations such as RJ Reynolds, a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc.
Second to corporations are the growers, whom he describes as being at the financial mercy of the corporations that buy their crops.
Mr. Velásquez said his immediate goal is to get RJ Reynolds to agree to three-way labor talks between FLOC and farmers from tobacco states such as North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and South Carolina.
Jump to full article » |