We all know that farmworkers deserve better treatment than we give them, especially in these extraordinary days, when heat, wildfire, inflation and far-right, anti-immigrant attacks are all making a tough life even harder.įrom day one, Gonzalez is letting it be known what she stands for, who she stands with and how far she’ll go. It’s a statement, and one likely to be well received by those young union hopefuls she wants and needs to energize to keep the Fed relevant and powerful in a new era. The veto of the bill was a body blow to a union already struggling to stay on its feet. That bill came months before a court ruling that basically kicked union organizers off of private farms, making it harder to organize or hold elections most farmworkers are undocumented, and showing up on the boss’ land to vote for a union can seem like a real risk.
UFW is down to fewer than 7,000 members by most counts and last fall suffered an ugly legislative defeat when Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed mail-in ballots for its unionization drives. For a while, its staunchest ally seemed to be an internet cat named Jorts. It left the Fed in about 2006, though neither Romero nor Gonzalez has been able to figure out why. While Huerta and Cesar Chavez are two of the most famous icons of unionism, UFW, the union they helped create, has been losing members and political power for years (though it still punches far above its weight at the Capitol, where Latino representation has grown). It may come as a surprise to many that the farmworkers have long been on the outskirts of the mainstream labor movement in California, despite “Si Se Puede,” first spoken by Dolores Huerta, being a ubiquitous slogan at rallies. This is a fight for a future where a single job actually pays the bills.īut, like farmworkers, those hopeful union members, many immigrants, are often people that the old guard of the labor movement - dominated by middle-class groups that include teachers, public-sector workers, nurses and others - failed to include. During the same period, unfair labor practice claims have increased 14.5% - up from 11,451 to 13,106, according to an NLRB official. In recent months, union representation petitions filed with the National Labor Relations Board have skyrocketed by 56% - marking nearly 2,000 workplaces trying to unionize. Baristas, warehouse workers, fast-food cashiers and cooks - we all know the stories of the post-pandemic fatigue and frustration that have led these low-wage employees to seek the power of collective bargaining, and the great lengths to which corporations are going to prevent their success. It’s also a message that California is hoping to ride the new wave of labor that’s rolling across the country, one increasingly led by young people of color and women. It may sound like inside baseball, but it is without a doubt a moment in the history of workers’ rights in the Golden State, which has long been less than golden for our most defenseless wage earners - those who pick crops, fry burgers and fill thousands of service and gig-industry jobs that offer as little in the way of wages as they do in workplace rights.Īs Gonzalez told me Monday, two days before becoming the first woman and the first person of color to lead the Fed, joining with the farmworkers is a message: “We are going to ruffle some feathers, and you are not going to get any apologies.” Former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez on Wednesday is taking over as head of the California Labor Federation, and she’s dropping a surprise meant to make clear that her leadership will not be business as usual: She’s bringing the farmworkers union with her.Īfter about 16 years of being mostly on its own, with declining fortunes, the United Farm Workers is joining the Fed, the “union of unions” that acts as an umbrella for the California labor movement, leveraging collective clout and money in elections and at the Capitol.
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