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. . .We have to link these fights in a new and deeper way than ever before,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents over 2 million workers in the U.S. and Canada. . .The service workers union has partnered with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the American Federation of Teachers, United Farm Workers and the Fight for $15 and a Union, which was launched in 2012 by American fast food workers to push for a higher minimum wage. . .

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...

Where are the Gerawan Farming Workers' ballots from the 2013 UFW decertification election? Gerawan Farming workers just won a huge victory over the United farm Workers labor union and California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. In a 3-0 decision, the Fifth District Court of Appeal ordered the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board to count the workers’ ballots from the November 2013 election to decertify the United Farm Workers labor union, and issue a tally. But where are the ballots? The decertification election took place November 3, 2013. After all of the ballots were in, the ALRB impounded them, refused to count...

A California couple died in a car crash Tuesday after fleeing from immigration officials, police said. Santo Garcia, 35, and Marcelina Profecto, 33, died at the scene in rural Kern County after their speeding SUV crashed into a power pole and overturned , Delano police said. Police determined the couple was fleeing from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who tried to stop their vehicle. The driver pulled over, but then began speeding after the agents flashed their emergency lights and got out of their vehicle, police said. The couple, who has six children, was out looking for work when they...

As temperatures plunged from 94 degrees into the 60s on a recent August evening, Lodi grower Brad Goehring dispatched his crew of Mexican workers into a field to pick Pinot Gris. The grapes were finally sweet enough, and the 2017 wine harvest had begun. Despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to step up deportations of undocumented immigrants, there’s little evidence of field workers being rounded up in California this year. “We haven’t heard of a single ICE raid in California fields,” said Goehring. An estimated 70 percent of California’s roughly 600,000 farm workers are undocumented, according to United Farm Workers Vice...

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...

A group of Fresno farm workers is accusing the state of California of forcing them into the United Farm Workers union. Workers at Fresno-based Gerawan Farms held an election in November to determine whether or not they would remain in the UFW. However, those ballots were never counted. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) seized the ballots until it could investigate UFW allegations of voter impropriety. “We direct the regional director to forward to the Board and serve on all parties to the election all challenged ballot declarations and all other evidence in his possession relevant to the eligibility of...

It was a dismal epoch in Delano, CA. The goal of the infamous Delano Grape Boycott was to force unionization of the farm workers to improve their pay and working conditions while subjugating their employers. The majority of the workers were Americans of Mexican descent, plus documented immigrants and illegal’s. They have a certain love of the soil and a sense of true beauty and artistry that benefitted California agriculture for generations. They could draw the best out of a grape vine or a fruit tree or make a broken down tractor hum. They are also Roman Catholic from the...

.....my e-mailbox lit up with messages about a new Absolut ad catering to Mexicans who believe the American Southwest belongs to them. (That extreme ethno-supremacist idea is not news to anyone who has paid attention to the massive illegal-alien marches where "This is our continent, not yours" has been a rallying mainstay.) Favio Ucedo, creative director of leading US Latino ad agency Grupo Gallegos, (not involved in the Absolut campaign), explained the reconquista-endorsing ad: "Mexicans talk about how the Americans stole their land, so this is their way of reclaiming it. It's very relevant and the Mexicans will love the...

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...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Jerry Brown has until midnight Tuesday to act on a bill that would make it easier for unions to organize farmworkers in California, but growers characterize the legislation as a union power-grab. The bill would allow farmworkers to organize by signing a petition away from the fields, rather than holding a secret ballot election as they do now. Unions say the current system leads to intimidation by employers, while farmers say a petition system would make it easier for union organizers to bully workers into joining. Growers and other business groups also say greater unionization...

In a vote that split down ethnic lines, the City Council on Thursday approved changing the name of Durango Boulevard in honor of civil rights activist and labor leader César Chávez. Though they all said Chávez should be honored in some meaningful way, none of the non-Latino council members — Ivy Taylor, Reed Williams, Elisa Chan and John Clamp — voted in favor of the proposal. The council's seven Hispanic members supported the initiative. Opposition vacillated from the pragmatic to the philosophical and included arguments that changing the street name would be too great a burden on residents and businesses,...

The United Farm Workers Union is just a Jerry Brown autograph away from salvation.  The UFW which has seen its membership decline from more than 70,000 in the seventies to roughly 27,000 (including part time and seasonal workers) today is ready to fill its ranks and coffers through ‘card check.’   The Sacramento Bee reports that the California Assembly passed the ‘card check’ bill on Monday.  The measure, Senate Bill 104, cleared the Assembly by a vote of 51-26 with Republicans opposed.  It now goes to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who has not yet announced whether he will sign it. Proposed...

WOODVILLE -- A dozen farmworkers sat in a circle of plastic chairs in a modest living room, listening as a union organizer talked about a bill she said would allow people to organize without fear, rebuild the union and improve conditions in the fields. The United Farm Workers of America drew national attention when workers led by Cesar Chavez inspired a boycott of table grapes in the 1960s and then forced vineyard owners to sign hundreds of contracts providing better pay and working conditions. But experts say employer intimidation, high worker turnover and demographic changes have resulted in union membership...

"Controversy still swirls after some say a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union hijacked a commencement address at Cal State Bakersfield." "She also slammed America's most-listened-to talk radio host, Rush Limbaugh."

The dynamics of the farm labor population have changed since César Chávez and others began organizing workers in California's fields. In the early 1960s, a guest-worker program that had imported workers from Mexico since the days of World War II was drawing to a close. Those who were left picking crops were largely legal residents or U.S. citizens of Mexican and Filipino descent, along with working-class white and black Americans. “Back then, probably 80 percent were documented, and about 20 percent were undocumented. Today it would be just the reverse,” said Arturo Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers, the nation's...

HURON, Calif. - Weary of waiting for Congress to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, the United Farm Workers hopes to recruit Mexican laborers to pick crops on U.S. farms. The union’s efforts to import temporary workers under an existing government program follows similar moves by lawmakers in Arizona and Colorado, who are also trying to create new pathways to bring in foreign field hands without approval from Washington. This month, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez signed an agreement with the governor of the Mexican state of Michoacan to help recruit local residents to apply for temporary jobs on U.S. farms, all...

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....