"Farmworkers Reap Little as Union Strays From Its Roots" LA Times article

[More Than A Feeling]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ufw8jan08,0,6225953,full.story?coll=la-home-local

Here is a brief summary from the top of the article:

Today, a Times investigation has found, Chavez's heirs run a web of tax-exempt organizations that exploit his legacy and invoke the harsh lives of farmworkers to raise millions of dollars in public and private money.

The money does little to improve the lives of California farmworkers, who still struggle with the most basic health and housing needs and try to get by on seasonal, minimum-wage jobs.

Most of the funds go to burnish the Chavez image and expand the family business, a multimillion-dollar enterprise with an annual payroll of $12 million that includes a dozen Chavez relatives.

The UFW is the linchpin of the Farm Worker Movement, a network of a dozen tax-exempt organizations that do business with one another, enrich friends and family, and focus on projects far from the fields: They build affordable housing in San Francisco and Albuquerque, own a top-ranked radio station in Phoenix, run a political campaign in support of an Indian casino and lobby for gay marriage.

Read the rest of the article. It does not paint a pretty picture, at least as far as the farm workers are concerned. Overall, it seems to me that the picture is mixed. Affordable housing and gay marriage are good things, and a union owned radio station is better for countering RW radio. Plus, how much is the UFW's supposed failures to organize a outgrowth of anti-union feeling in this country in general? On the other hand, perhaps the union has lost focus, and needs to get back to what was its core mission. Hiring non-union workers isn't cool, either. If even unions won't hire union workers, then who else will?

What do you all who are more familiar with unions think of this? (Unions haven't been my area of focus, but I saw this article mentioned on mydd.com, and I thought it would fit in this new forum.)

[dogman]

1. Today comes word they have withdrawn from the AFL-CIO.

It seems to me that a number of unions have joined the race to the bottom. Unionization for the sake of being union isn't what it should be about. Some of these lesser unions just want dues paying members. They point to the big union bosses as being corrupt but they are happy to be the biggest fish in a smaller pond. Unfortunately unions are slower to respond to members and are more about keeping the status quo for those in power. They tend to be top down organizations. This is probably more responsible for the loss of unions than anything. They make it to easy for the corporate culture to denigrate them. We have the same problem in the Dem Party. People are too apathetic and become discouraged easily.

[Omaha Steve]

2. I didn't know about the AFL-CIO

I have received many emails that make them sound like a real union. Here is the most recent.

http://www.ufw.org/

.


Puzzled by Miriam Pawel's L.A. Times series

We are grateful to the hundreds of good people who know our work and have contacted us expressing outrage at Miriam Pawel's recent series in the Los Angeles Times. For a few, the articles have raised concerns, and we appreciate you contacting us directly so we can answer any questions. Please email us at [email protected] and we will respond.

Pawel’s main premise--that the United Farm Workers is "failing to organize California farm workers"--is directly contradicted by reporting from no less than 22 Los Angeles Times reporters and two columnists between April 25, 1994 (when the current UFW organizing drive began) and Sept. 23, 2005. These stories chronicle substantial UFW organizing, election, strike and boycott activities plus new union contracts and legislative victories.

Either all the stories by those L.A. Times reporters are wrong or Pawel’s stories are wrong. They both can’t be right. There is a long list of accomplishments and facts in that L.A. Times coverage raising serious questions about Pawel’s reporting. Please see citations for just 48 of the 1994-2005 news articles and columns by Times writers on UFW activities by subject matter with headlines, reporters’ names and dates at http://www.ufw.org/puzzled11206.htm

Among other things, L.A. Times stories from 1994 to 2005 chronicle:

--A string of UFW election victories and campaigns to win contracts, with workers at 32 companies voting for the union in secret ballot elections and dozens of important UFW contract successes, including the largest strawberry, rose, winery and mushroom firms in California and the nation.

--Fierce grower resistance to farm worker organizing.

--The UFW’s major organizing campaign among Central Valley table grape workers last summer that produced modest pay hikes and a near win in the largest private-sector union election in the nation last year, at Giummara.

--New laws and regulations aiding farm workers the UFW won since 1999, from seat belts in farm labor vehicles and fresh protections for farm workers cheated by farm labor contractors to an historic binding mediation law and new pesticide protections for farm workers. The UFW even convinced Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2005 to issue an emergency regulation to prevent further heat deaths of farm workers and all outdoor employees.

If Pawel was telling the full story of the UFW and the Farm Worker Movement, her writing would have reflected it. You decide:

--Tuesday’s story totaled 121 column inches. Only 5 inches contained facts or perspective provided by the UFW.

--Monday’s article was 135.5 column inches. Just 8.5 inches were from the Farm Worker Movement.

--Sunday’s story was 132 column inches. Only 10 inches were from the Farm Worker Movement.

We plan to take these facts and much more to the editors of the L.A. Times and demand the full story of the UFW, Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement be told. We’re never satisfied with the progress we have made. But we’re proud of what we have accomplished and remain committed to overcoming the many challenges we face. We hope you will join us. Please send your letter to the editor of the L.A. Times if you have not already done so. (A much more detailed refutation is in the process of being prepared and we will share it with you and post it at http://www.ufw.org/puzzledLAT.htm.)

If you have not yet sent you letter to the editor of the L.A. Times, please do so. Sign your letter with your full name, street address and phone number, and send it to: [email protected] or Letters to the Editor, 202 West First Street, Los Angeles, CA. 90012. If you send a letter-to-the editor, please cc us a copy at: [email protected].




Keep Up With UFW News. Visit our web site at: www.ufw.org.

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for the UFW's list serve.

Moved? New E-mail address? Want to receive alerts in plain text or HTML?
Update your profile at your Subscription Management Page

If you would like to unsubscribe from the UFW List Serve, please visit your subscription management page by clicking here.

Privacy Policy

United Farm Workers, 29700 Woodford-Tehachapi Rd., P.O. Box 62, Keene, CA, 93531 http://www.ufw.org

[demosincebirth]

3. I'm in Ca and I haven't heard or seen

any organizing in the vegetable growing areas in a long time. If that article is true, its a crying shame that was once a great movement under Cesar Chavez has taken the path of many unions officials of linning their own pockets off the sweat of farm workers.