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A Summer To Remember
Talking and Walking Union
The Walk for Farmworker Justice
by Peg Morton
Ministry of the Dispossessed, by Pat Hoffman, is about the farmworker struggle
to organize under the leadership of Cesar Chavez in California in the 1960's and
‘70's. ( 1987, Wallace Press, Los Angeles.) In her concluding paragraphs, Pat Hoffman
writes:"Every one of us has the responsibility for our own conversions. ...
We need, time and time again, to be turned off the paved highways marked ‘'Status
Quo.' We need to turn on to the rutted dirt byways with no markings. The only way
we know we're on the right road is that all the poor people are on it. They're walking.
..."
This last June 18-24, 2001, faith communities, unions and others were invited to
walk with farmworkers in the productive farmland of Willamette Valley, Oregon. The
Walk for Farmworker Justice was a huge effort to expand the consciousness and
commitment of those who eat the food the farmworkers pick, to bring us into the struggle.
A symbol of the struggle was carried around each day on a rickety truck, to be present
at the educational and cultural events of each evening: Sitting at a table were cardboard
representations of Farmworkers, Religious Organizations, and Consumers. The empty
chair is waiting for NORPAC, the Growers Cooperative in the Willamette Valley.
The farmworker struggle in the Willamette Valley has gained momentun over the past
years, under leadership from the union, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos de Noroeste,
or PCUN. It focuses on agricultural workers and on the growers cooperative NORPAC.
NORPAC has refused to endorse the right of workers to organize under PCUN. NORPAC
growers have resisted farmerworkers efforts to organize. Workers, organizers and
supporters have been fired, threatened and even on some occasions attacked. Following
the Chavez's United Farm Workers model, PCUN has reached out for support, very much
including faith communities. They have invited delegations to visit camps and the
fields, working to spread the message of the farmworker struggle, and finally initiating
and promoting a boycott of NORPAC products (Santiam and Flav-R-Pac). While faith
communities have balked at this latter confrontive tactic, it has expanded effectively
around the country through coordination of PCUN, the Campaign for Labor Rights and
the Student Anti-Sweatshop movement.
The Walk itself, in the planning for a year, was initiated by faith based and labor
support communities and welcomed by PCUN. A core group of around 40 gathered on June
18 for orientation and nonviolence training, then a long ride in a rickety bus for
our first educational and cultural evening among farmworkers. In these daily events,
we heard testimonies from farmworkers, their personal stories, the organizing projects
of women and youth, and more. We sang; we yelled "Si, se puede!" ("Yes,
it can be done!") Each day we were driven to a walk site. Various faith communities
from around the valley, helped serve breakfasts, snacks and dinners, in parks and
churches near where we walked.
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Envision 100 women, children and men, strung out single file on the
edge of a narrow country road, along a field. No workers to be seen: They were removed.
We carried signs and red PCUN flags. An agile young woman, Cassandra, bellowed through
a bull horn from across the road, calling for us to respond: "What do we want?"
"Justice!", as she pointed, gestured, and leapt around. Cassandra was only
one of many young adults in their twenties and even younger who provided leadership
in many facets of the Walk. They led discussions, worked out logistics, collected
and accounted for money, provided security each day for the walks and rallies.
It is inspiring to me that this new generation is rising up so competently to provide
leadership in the struggle for a better world. Each day saw an increase in numbers.
On Wednesday we walked close to a labor camp, with wide-eyed children peering out
a window. We came to the camp of a large farm, whose manager, has never been willing
to speak to PCUN representatives. We bellowed in Spanish to anyone who might be there,
behind the fence, who we were, and our desire that the grower negotiate with PCUN.
To our surprise, the manager of the farm was there and invited us in. We trooped
in and surrounded him. as he answered our questions politely, for nearly an hour.
It is his firm belief that the farmworkers' union would add significantly to his
economic woes. Ramon Ramirez, President of PCUN, spoke of the benefits of cooperation.
This was the first time ever that these two had had a direct interchange. We were
encouraged.
Agathe and her mother
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(However, since the Walk, the same manager has published a vitriolic
letter in a Salem newspaper.) Thursday was Youth Day, devoted in part to workshops
where youth group members organized by Latinos Unidos Siempre (LUS), based in Salem,
shared both personal stories and organizing experience. "When I was 3, my mother
took me to the fields each day while she worked. I cried and cried."...The empowerment
and effectiveness of youth organizing for justice, their own and others, was evident.
Augmented to some 200, we walked energetically through the streets of Woodburn. Friday
was Ecumenical Day, culminating in a beautiful interfaith service.
Our Walking Theologian, Jane Redmont, who teaches at the Graduate Theological Union
at Berkeley, provided opportunities throughout the week for relating our divergent
faiths with the farmworker struggle. Saturday was Union Day. Union-sponsored buses
arrived for a walk and rally in Stayton, home of NORPAC. There may have been 300
of us. We were treated to guerrilla theater. We marched through the streets of Stayton,
and stood in front of NORPAC, shouting our messages. There was a vigorous rally in
a nearby park. I welcomed a foot massage from a volunteer who had brought a chair
and oils for the purpose.
At noon, over sandwiches in another park, Enrique Diaz raised his severed arm. It
was severed recently by a forklift at the Pictsweet factory, where mushrooms are
grown. He believes that the incident would not have happened if they had been willing
to hire a trained forklift operator. He, and other Pictsweet workers I talked with
during the Walk, spoke of long hours with no overtime, piece work that meant less
than minimum wage, constant pressure to work at even higher speeds. Workers, mostly
Latino, are attempting to organize under PCUN, and are meeting high resistance from
the company. Enrique has no coverage for expensive pain medication. We passed a hat.
Pictsweet is pressuring him to return to work.
Later, in Salem, we trooped on to demonstrate in front of Pictsweet. It was quite
a surprise to see a man decked out in suit and tie at the front of the march. He
was the mayor of Salem, who joined Enrique and others to speak from a pick-up truck.
He pronounced strongly that such conditions should not exist and must be ended. At
supper, I encountered two women who had surrounded the same float as I at the WTO
demonstration in Seattle. On another evening, I ran into a friend who has since departed
to accompany a threatened indigenous community in Guatemala. It's an ever-expanding
global network of solidarity.
Sunday rally in Salem
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That Sunday, several hundred farmworkers and their families, relieved
from field work, joined us in the pouring rain for the final march, rally and interfaith
service at the Capitol. The Governor, the Mayor of Salem, the President of the United
Farmworkers and the Executive Director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, were among
those who spoke. There was dancing and drumming by a youth theater group in Aztec
traditional dress. There was music and there were joyous faces in the rare summer
rain.
What were some of the messages from the Walk?
1. The importance of keeping the vision: There are no human enemies. We are all human.
2. By joining the farmworker movement and following the lead of farmworkers, we are
contributing to their empowerment while increasing the effectiveness of the struggle.
Our personal presence builds both their trust and our own. It is one struggle for
justice. The sacrifices farmworkers make to bring food to our table is way beyond
any sacrifice we have made.
3. We are working in solidarity with farmworkers, so that they will achieve the dignity
and respect they deserve, decent housing, a living wage, work safety, health care,
education, freedom from persecution, and importantly, the right to organize so that
they themselves are empowered to work effectively for these goals.
4. Some obstacles that come in the way: Uninformed consumers, racism, the invisibility
of farmworkers, the weakness of the farm economy, the global economy that affects
all agriculture, the lack of legal backing for organizing. (The National labor Relations
Act of 1936 does not cover farmworkers.)
Having been a child in the 1930's, when John Steinbeck's
Grapes of Wrath was published, I have to ask: When will farmworkers achieve
these goals? When will their exploitation end? The answer, of course, is immensely
complex, involving an exploitive global economy that hurts growers as well as workers.
But farmworkers will never gain their place at the table until they can organize
and become strong leaders in the struggle.
"The little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the tide. They sprayed
the trees and sold no crop, they pruned and grafted and could not pick the crop....
This little orchard will be part of a great holding next year, for the debt will
have chocked the owner.
This vineyard will belong to the Bank. Only the great owners can survive, for they
own the canneries, too. And four pears peeled and cut in half, cooked and canned,
still cost fifteen cents. And canned pears do not spoil. They will last for years.
The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land.
Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to
let the hungry people eat. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot creat
a system whereby thier fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State
like a great sorrow...
... and in the eyes of the people there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people
the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."
John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, 1939
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