[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 123 (Monday, October 4, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H8002-H8003]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  GREAT VICTORY FOR FARM LABOR ORGANIZING COMMITTEE IN REACHING LABOR 
                               AGREEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Murphy). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to speak this evening on behalf 
of the people of our congressional district in Ohio. All Members like 
to rise when something really significant has happened, and I come from 
a part of America, northern Ohio, that has always fought for the 
betterment of the working conditions of people, across our region, 
across our State, across our country, and indeed across the world.
  This past week, and I will place the article in the Record, something 
truly historic has occurred, something that deserves mention in the 
Congressional Record of our Nation, and that is the great victory by 
the Farm Labor Organizing Committee of Northwest Ohio and its 
magnificent leader, Baldemar Velasquez, in achieving the first labor 
agreement on behalf of thousands and thousands of migrant workers 
across this continent, for the first time giving them the ability to 
earn a decent wage, to have decent working conditions, and to contract 
for their labor, to begin to get rid of the corruption that surrounds 
individuals who move around this continent, exploiting people and 
forcing them to pay bounty if they want to go back to their nation, 
forcing them to pay a bounty if they want a job, and then ignore them, 
ignore their welfare when they are working with no rights at all.
  Every year, 9 million people come to the United States of America, 
most of them illegally, to work in our fields, picking blueberries, 
cutting cabbage, working in meat plants, working in food processing 
facilities with absolutely everybody sort of closing their eyes to 
their welfare, everybody making money off their backs, and yet those 
workers having no standing.
  This past week, through this incredible agreement, the Farm Labor 
Organizing Committee has finally given the most exploited people on 
this continent the first platform to stand on. I could not be prouder 
to represent any group of people than this group.
  I can remember as a young college graduate coming back to my 
community in Ohio and wearing a button that said FLOC, the Farm Labor 
Organizing Committee, and it had the words ``viva la causa,'' long live 
the cause. Indeed the cause has finally been victorious across this 
great continent.
  This contract that the workers have gotten will cover over 8,000 
workers, dozens of growers, and hopefully begin to ameliorate the 
terrible conditions forced on workers on this continent because of 
NAFTA, all that came before it and the worsening conditions that came 
after, as millions of Mexican farmers were thrown off their land and 
became a mobile group of people across this continent with no place to 
live, no decent wages, coming into our market, trafficked by among the 
most despicable people that have ever lived.
  I am just so proud of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. This is 
the first

[[Page H8003]]

contract for guest workers in our Nation's history, in Mexico's 
history, and, indeed, in Latin America's history.
  What will happen is that workers will receive a decent wage, not 
terrific for working in the hot sun 12 hours a day, $8.06 an hour, for 
the backbreaking work they do. It has been covered in articles in the 
Toledo Blade which reported this front page story: ``Pact to affect 
8,000 migrants.''
  The pact was signed in North Carolina after a several-year boycott of 
the second-largest pickling company in our country called Mt. Olive 
Pickle. It talks about FLOC's 35 years of struggle to provide migrant 
workers with better working conditions and fair wages. Initially, the 
contracts were signed locally in our region of Ohio with companies like 
Campbell's Soup and Vlasic Pickle, but finally it has expanded to other 
parts of the country where workers will now be paid $8.06 an hour, a 
federally set minimum wage rate for what are called H2-A workers, the 
workers that do come into our country. But again I say, so many are 
illegally trafficked by unscrupulous labor barons they call 
``coyotes.'' And workers could earn up to $12 an hour on piecework. So 
it provides for people who have the ability to work harder to be paid 
more.
  Undocumented workers who are under control of unscrupulous smugglers 
and farm labor contractors, this provides the ability, finally, to get 
rid of those terrible, terrible individuals.
  Mr. Speaker, I could not be prouder than to come to this floor this 
evening and congratulate Baldemar Velasquez and the Farm Labor 
Organizing Committee for building a better world.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article from the Toledo 
Blade.

                     Pact to Affect 8,000 Migrants

                            (By Jon Chavez)

       In what would be its first major organizing victory outside 
     Ohio and Michigan, the Toledo-based Farm Labor Organizing 
     Committee today is expected to sign a three-way labor 
     agreement in North Carolina with Mt. Olive Pickle Co. Inc., 
     which has been the subject of a FLOC boycott since 1999.
       At a ceremony in Raleigh, N.C., this morning, FLOC 
     officials said they will sign a three-year labor pact with 
     the North Carolina Growers Association, of Vass, N.C., which 
     represents about 1,050 farms that raise 27 different crops 
     ranging from cucumbers to tobacco, and a related agreement 
     with Mt. Olive.
       It's a marked change in business in mostly nonunion North 
     Carolina. The contracts will cover the most union workers in 
     the state, and FLOC will be its largest labor organization.
       Covered by the agreements will be nearly 8,000 migrant 
     workers who travel from Mexico to North Carolina, numbers 
     that will more than double FLOC's membership rolls.
       Baldemar Velasquez, president of FLOC, was ecstatic 
     yesterday. ``I knew eventually they would have to do 
     something. I just never knew the timing would be this soon,'' 
     he told The Blade.
       Lynn Williams, a spokesman for Mt. Olive, said the company 
     would not comment until the contract is signed.
       How individual farmers feel is unclear. They can choose to 
     opt out of the association, which a party to the contract. 
     But how those growers would be affected is uncertain.
       The agreements cover migrants who harvest crops and work 
     with visas issued under a U.S. Department of Labor program 
     called H-2A. The growers association helps place H-2A workers 
     at various farms as needed.
       The pacts will provide the workers with specific wage rates 
     for either hourly work or for how much is picked (depending 
     on the crop), a formal procedure to address grievances, and 
     third-party verification to ensure all parties are living up 
     to the agreement.
       FLOC was born in the fields of northwest Ohio nearly 35 
     years ago as a means to provide migrant workers with better 
     working conditions and fair wages. Initially, it reached 
     contracts with individual growers but became a formidable 
     force in the industry when it reached an agreement in 1986 
     with Campbell Soup Co. and its subsidiary, Vlasic Pickle, and 
     a group of growers to improve wages and working conditions.
       The agreements in North Carolina follow a similar 
     arrangement and similarly occurred after years of public 
     boycotts and pressure tactics by the farm union.
       In FLOC's agreement with Mt. Olive Pickle, the nation's 
     second-largest pickle firm, the Mount Olive, N.C., company 
     endorses the separate contract between the union and growers 
     association and it provides economic incentives for the deal 
     to occur.
       Mr. Velasquez said that about 60 cucumber growers will get 
     a 10 percent price increase for their crops they supply to 
     Mt. Olive. That increase will be passed along in the form of 
     wage increases for the 800 to 1,000 workers who work for 
     those growers.
       Those workers are paid $8.06 an hour, a federally set 
     minimum wage rate for H-2A workers. Under the new pact, which 
     raises pay rates, workers could earn up to $12 an hour. ``It 
     depends, but a good picker could earn that,'' Mr. Velasquez 
     said.
       Growers do not have to participate in the contract. 
     However, those who remain in the association will be covered 
     by the agreement and receive the crop price increases, said 
     Stan Eury, director of the growers association.
       The agreements do not prohibit farmers who are not part of 
     the association from supplying Mt. Olive Pickle. At least a 
     few suppliers now do not belong to the association.
       David Rose, a sweet-potato and tobacco farmer from 
     Nashville, N.C., said there have been rumors for months that 
     a farm labor contract was in the works. He declined to say 
     how many farmers might leave the association.
       Still, Mr. Rose, of JB Rose Farms Inc., said the labor 
     agreements likely will have an impact on all farmers.
       The key provisions of the contracts were not necessarily 
     wages.
       Workers frequently complained of abuses by growers but were 
     fearful to report them because they might be blacklisted and 
     later denied a work visa, Mr. Velasquez said. The agreements 
     provide a list of worker rights, including a hiring seniority 
     system that the union will administer through a work office 
     to be set up in Mexico.
       ``The pact goes from Mexico all the way to Ohio, so that 
     will eliminate debate around blacklisting of workers,'' Mr. 
     Velasquez said. ``They'll be union members by the time they 
     enter the U.S.''
       For the growers, there is a formal grievance system and 
     third-party inspections to verify compliance, which should 
     protect the farmers' image if they are treating their workers 
     right, he said.
       ``The worst part of it for them is the terrible negative 
     image that comes with these issues,'' the Toledo labor leader 
     said. ``They don't like the publicity.''
       In a statement, Mr. Eury agreed that credibility is 
     important.
       ``Unfortunately the lines have been blurred between the 
     treatment of H-2A foreign guest-workers and undocumented 
     workers who are under control of unscrupulous smugglers and 
     farm labor contractors,'' the statement said. ``Our industry 
     is continually judged as a whole by the misdeeds of a few.''
       The three parties began negotiating about six weeks ago at 
     the behest of Mt. Olive, Mr. Velasquez said. The first hint 
     became publicly known last month when FLOC said a large 
     growers' association agreed to not meddle in the union's 
     organizing activity.
       After reaching agreement on key principles, details of the 
     pact were worked out in about a week, Mr. Velasquez said.
       Both Mt. Olive and the growers researched FLOC's previous 
     labor agreements with growers for Campbell and Vlasic.
       ``They studied it and told us they could live with it,'' 
     Mr. Velasquez said. ``They had also called some growers in 
     Ohio to see how it had worked up there. The growers gave them 
     some positive feedback.''

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