Washington, D.C. - On Sunday, August 29, 2004 Congressman Howard Berman addressed the 17th Constitutional Convention of the United Farm Workers in Fresno, California.  Below is a highlight of his speech.

 

"No workers in this country are more poorly paid than farm workers, but none work harder. Without a union contract, job security is nonexistent, and the basic understanding that the rest of us have about the terms and conditions of our employment is denied. Housing may be no more than a hillside.

Growers persist in inflating the supply of workers in order to drive down wages, and the reserve army of workers they seek to have at their disposal feeds their callous disregard for the well-being – indeed the very lives – of those workers.  We don’t need to look any further than the tragic death of Asuncion Valdivia in Kern County last month for confirmation of that disregard for the worth of an individual human life.

When the largest wine company in the world, Gallo of Sonoma, does not provide any benefits for their workers employed by farm labor contractors that is unfair. Make no mistake, I and other public officials who support the cause of farm workers will stand with you if you do not resolve your contract at the bargaining table.

We needed to take steps to improve the circumstances of farm workers in this country. To accomplish that in the present political context requires a collaborative, bipartisan approach that takes into account the needs and interests of labor and employers. AgJobs would create an earned adjustment program for undocumented farm workers who would be eligible to apply for temporary immigration status based on their past work experience, and who could get a green card when they satisfy the program’s prospective agricultural work requirement.  For all of us who deplore the abuse of undocumented farm workers, this legalization component is what makes passage of AgJobs so critically important.

So we have a bill strongly supported by the UFW, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the national Latino civil rights organizations, and the AFL-CIO on the one hand, and by all the key national – and California – agricultural employer organizations, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the other hand.  It has been cosponsored by a resounding 63 United States senators, and was about to come up for a vote in the Senate in July when the vote was blocked by the Republican leadership at the request of the White House.

Why? Could it be that as the election approaches, a president who claims that some of his best friends are Latino, and invites them to the White House to hear a speech about his pro-immigrant principles, in reality cares more about solidifying his right-wing, anti-immigrant base?  Does he think that Latino voters and their friends and supporters can be so easily fooled?

I know that the UFW officers, staff, and members are working tirelessly to rally public opinion in support of AgJobs. Newspapers around the country have editorialized in favor of AgJobs, seeing the bill as a sensible and balanced package that promotes the national interest.  The fact that longtime adversaries came together to negotiate and work for passage of this legislation has been a real attention-getter. The opportunity to enact legislation that farmworkers and growers alike have a stake in may not come along again anytime soon.

That is why we must succeed in our effort to pass AgJobs this September when the Congress reconvenes following the long summer recess or, barring that, in the increasingly inevitable lame-duck session following the election.  With your help, we will. We must.

But the UFW alone cannot achieve lasting justice for farm workers, because that is our nation’s task as well, and that is why we need AgJobs.  It is not right that hundreds of thousands of undocumented farm workers harvest America’s food, and are willing to continue to do so, but are consigned to live in the shadows.  We can and must change that with Agjobs."