News and Updates
Climate Change is Affecting Farm Workers
August 26th, 2019 Originally posted at The Takeaway On The Takeaway, we’ve talked about how heat is affecting workers throughout the country this summer — but now we want to turn our attention to farmers. For instance, farmers from California have been...
read moreThe H-2A Guest Worker Program Has Ballooned in Size, but Both Farmers and Workers Want it Fixed
By Gosia Wozniacka July 16,2019 Originally Posted at Civil Eats When Juan Antonio Lara signed up to work in Washington state’s apple orchards, he had big dreams. He hoped to make enough money working as an agricultural guest worker to build a house in his native El...
read moreSince Washington, D.C., Won’t Oversee Its Guest Worker Programs, Washington State Will
By David Bacon July 5th, 2019 Originally Posted at The American Prospect On Wednesday morning, June 12, 21 guest workers at the King Fuji Ranch in Mattawa, Washington, didn’t file into the company orchards as usual, to thin apples. Instead, they stood with arms folded...
read moreFired just for asking for a raise, Washington farm workers organize
By David Bacon April 23rd, 2019 Originally posted at People’s World In 2013, in Washington State, Familias Unidas por la Justicia was born when migrant indigenous Mexican blueberry pickers refused to go into the fields of Sakuma Brothers Farms after one of them...
read moreWashington sets up panel on farmworkers
By Don Jenkins August 27,2019 Originally Posted at Capital Press OLYMPIA — Labor and grower representatives adopted Monday a wide-ranging charter to study how foreign and American farmworkers are recruited and treated in Washington. The eight-member committee — four...
read moreFarmworkers Rise Up Against Trump and Labor Exploitation
By David Bacon August 10th ,2019 Originally Posted in Truthout Washington State today is ground zero in the effort to hold back the massive use of agricultural guest workers by U.S. growers, and to ensure that farmworkers, both those living here and those coming under...
read moreGuest farmworkers find their voices in Washington state
Originally published at High Country News October 24,2018 By Levi Pulkkinen “Al menos que se estén muriendo, no falten.” Unless you are dying, don’t miss work. That was the order given to guest workers bringing in the blueberry harvest for Munger Bros., in Sumas, a...
read moreOur Food System Is Built on Exploitation. Now Farmworkers Are Saying “No More.”
October 24, 2018 By Heather Gies Originally posted at In These Times For Rosalinda Guillén, everything begins with food—and that means paying close attention to the treatment of workers at the foundation of the food system. Standing recently on the steps of city hall...
read moreThe Cross-Border Farmworker Rebellion
By David Bacon October 31, 2018 Workers in the berry fields of the United States and Mexico have the same transnational employers. Now, farmworker unions in those two nations have begun to work together. Surrounded by blueberry and alfalfa fields near Sumas,...
read moreSARBANAND: A “DIRTY DOZEN” CORPORATION CONTESTING BEING FINED IN DISTRICT COURT FOR WORKING A FARMWORKER TO DEATH IN WHATCOM COUNTY
By Edgar Franks, Foodjustice.org May 23, 2018 | RESIST! On Wednesday May 23rd at 9:00am Sarbanand Farms is scheduled to appear in the Whatcom County District Court to appeal a fine that was imposed on them by the WA State Dept of Labor and Industries after the death...
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