#Migrant labor

[todaysdocument]

News from the U.S. Department of Labor, "Federal Stop-Order on Indio Farmer" (USDL-IX-59S56), San Francisco, August 3, 1959.

Record Group 174: General Records of the Department of LaborSeries: Records Relating to the Mexican Labor ("Bracero") ProgramFile Unit: Mexican Labor Program, General Correspondence

NEWS from the U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

James P. Mitchell, Secretary

CONTACT: Tor Torland, Info Officer

630 Sansome Street, San Francisco

YUkon 6-3111, Ext. 647

[handwritten] Mr Robertson

File

Mexican Program [/handwritten]

[stamp] RECEIVED

AUG 4 1959

REGIONAL ATTORNEY

SAN FRANCISCO [/stamp]

FEDERAL STOP-ORDER ON INDIO FARMER

SAN FRANCISCO, August 3: Joseph Munoz, a member of the Coachella Valley Farmers Association in Indio, has been refused further authorization to employ Mexican farm workers in a decision made public today by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Under the terms of public law 78 and the international agreement between the governments of the U.S. and Mexico, Mexican nationals may be imported to work on our farms only if it has been determined by authorities that there are not enough American workers in a specific area to fill farm-labor needs there.

Munoz was found to be using Mexican nationals to sort tomatoes in his packing shed despite repeated warnings by the U. S. Labor Department and the California Department of Employment that American workers were available for the jobs.

Glenn E. Brockway, regional director of the Labor Department's employment security bureau, issued his decision in a letter to the Coachella Valley Farmers Association. Brockway said, in part:

"All authorizations issued to the Coachella Valley Farmers Association to contract Mexican national workers are hereby revoked with respect to the employment of Mexican national workers by the said Joseph Munoz."

The federal stop-order also specified that because of Munoz's "repeated failure to give preference in employment of United States domestic workers", no authorizations would be granted him in future to use Mexican nationals.

The move came as part of the U.S. Labor Department's continuing policy of strictly policing the foreign-labor importation program so as to ensure first preference for farm jobs to American citizens.

#####

USDL-IX-59S56

[plethoraworldatlas]

Immigrants helped build this country, a fact no amount of racism or xenophobia can erase. Immigrants, including children, work in fields and factories, driving our economy. A group of immigrant men were working late last Tuesday night, filling potholes on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge.

At 1:27 am, the Dali, a massive cargo vessel, 948-feet long and laden with roughly 4,700 shipping containers, lost power and rammed into the bridge, causing it to collapse. Two survived the disaster, six died. Only two of their bodies have been recovered from the cold, murky water of the Patapsco River.

Their tragic deaths occurred as increased immigrant arrivals are being exploited by former President Donald Trump and his right-wing extremist allies to foment division and to boost Trump’s presidential campaign. Just hours after the bridge collapse, FoxNews host Maria Bartiromo, interviewing Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott, attempted to link the maritime disaster to immigrants at the U.S.’ southern border:

“I want to understand the threats or the potential threats that this country is facing right now given the wide open border, the fact that we don’t know who is in the country. The FBI is looking… to ensure there was no foul play.”

“While we’re being talked about as like this invading horde that’s coming to destroy the country, what does this story actually show us? That immigrants are filling our potholes at night so that we can have a smooth drive to work in the morning.”

This is the same dog-whistle racism that Trump invoked in 2015, launching his first campaign: “When Mexico sends its people…They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” Trump continues his white supremacist ranting, saying at a recent Ohio campaign rally, “I don’t know if you call them people… These are animals and we have to stop it.”

Maximillian Alvarez, editor-in-chief of the Baltimore-based Real News Network, interviewed coworkers of the deceased. He said on the Democracy Now! news hour, “While we’re being talked about as like this invading horde that’s coming to destroy the country, what does this story actually show us? That immigrants are filling our potholes at night so that we can have a smooth drive to work in the morning.”

The six who died while working on the Key Bridge were hardworking men, from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Miguel Luna was a welder, a 49-year-old father and grandfather, a native of the Usulután Department in El Salvador, ravaged by the U.S.-backed Salvadoran military and paramilitaries in the 1980s. He played on the professional soccer team in the town of Berlin in his home region. His widow, Maria del Carmen, owns a food truck. Miguel was a beloved member of his community.

Miguel and another victim of the collapse, Maynor Suazo Sandoval, were members of CASA, an immigrant rights non-profit founded in 1986 to build solidarity with those impacted by the U.S.-backed violence in Central America. CASA wrote, “Maynor migrated from Honduras over 17 years ago, and he alongside his brother Carlos were active members in the activist committee of Owings Mills… Carlos said ‘He was always so full of joy, and brought so much humor to our family.’ He was a husband, and father of two.”

Details are still emerging of the other named victims, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Mexico and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of Guatemala. Their bodies were found inside a pickup truck, submerged in the river. Two more victims, also reportedly from Mexico and Guatemala, remain unnamed by their respective governments.

Details are still emerging of the other named victims, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Mexico and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of Guatemala. Their bodies were found inside a pickup truck, submerged in the river. Two more victims, also reportedly from Mexico and Guatemala, remain unnamed by their respective governments.

Millions of enslaved people also built this country, a point worth remembering as we mourn the immigrant laborers on the Key Bridge. The bridge was named after Francis Scott Key since, while watching the British navy bombard Fort McHenry in 1814, not far from where the bridge was built in the 1970s, Key wrote the poem that would become the national anthem. His poem has four stanzas, the first made famous as “The Star Spangled Banner.” Key was a slave owner, and denounced those who fled enslavement in 1814 to fight against the United States, for the British, who promised them freedom in return.

“No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,” Key wrote in his poem, words left out of the national anthem, but which nevertheless noticeably rhyme with “Land of the free and home of the brave.” This should be considered by those tasked with naming the replacement bridge.

The lives of Miguel and the five other workers have been cut short, but the hatred of immigrants, sadly, is alive, well and growing this election year. Pledges from President Joe Biden to quickly open Baltimore’s port to commerce parallel campaign rhetoric on both sides to “shut down” the southern border to people seeking asylum.

“Immigrants like Miguel are building bridges to connect communities, not building walls to divide them,” CASA wrote, eulogizing Miguel Luna. Let those words inspire an embrace of immigrant communities, an anthem we can all rally around.

[trump666traitor]

[rejectingrepublicans]

[liberaljane]

Justice for the exploited and unpaid migrant workers who made this year’s World Cup possible.

Digital illustration of a migrant worker in a construction uniform and safety vest. He’s sitting on a bucket and there’s a deflated soccer ball on the ground. Text reads, ‘Justice for the exploited and unpaid migrant workers who made this year’s World Cup possible. ‘]

[reasonsforhope]

"California will begin paying for free legal help with immigration for undocumented farmworkers who are involved in state investigations of wage theft or other labor violations, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced this week.

The $4.5 million pilot program will provide qualifying farmworkers with referrals for legal help with their immigration status. 

Roughly half of California’s farmworker population is believed to be undocumented. Fear of deportation and difficulties finding jobs can discourage workers from filing labor complaints or serving as witnesses in cases alleging unsafe work temperatures, wage theft, or employer retaliation for unionizing, officials said...

Respecting immigrant rights

Farmworkers in labor investigations who qualify for the new state program will receive a direct referral to legal services organizations that already offer immigration services, such as the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County or the United Farm Workers Foundation, which spoke in support of the program. 

The free legal services workers could receive include case review, legal advice and representation by an attorney, according to Newsom’s office...

Deferred deportation

State officials said the pilot program aligns with a new Biden administration policy that makes it easier for undocumented workers who are victims of labor rights violations to request deferred action from deportation. Because the federal Department of Homeland Security can’t respond to all immigration violations, it exercises “prosecutorial discretion” to decide who to try to deport.

State officials said they won’t ask for workers’ immigration status, but noncitizens granted this deferred action may be eligible for work authorization.

This year, California labor department officials began supporting undocumented workers’ requests for prosecutorial discretion or deferred action from federal immigration officials, including when employers threaten workers with immigration enforcement to prevent workers from cooperating with state investigators. 

“The Department of Industrial Relations’ Labor Commissioner’s Office … was the first state agency to request deferred action from DHS for employees in an active investigation, and that request was successful,” Hickey said. “This is an important process for undocumented workers to be aware of.”"

-via CalMatters, July 21, 2023

[iww-gnv]

Every summer, people flock to Maryland to eat blue crabs. Named for their brilliant sapphire-colored claws, blue crab is one of the most iconic species in the Chesapeake Bay. The scientific name for blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus, means “beautiful savory swimmer.” In restaurants and at home, diners pile steamed and seasoned blue crabs in the middle of a table covered in paper. Then, using small mallets, knives, bare hands and fingers, they break open the hard shells and extract the juicy meat from inside. It is a messy experience, especially with Old Bay seasoning and beer known locally as Natty Bohs, one that is quintessentially Maryland. Though many people know firsthand how difficult it is to pick and clean crab meat, they often don’t realize how crab is processed when it is sold in stores already picked and cleaned. Most people also may not know that crab picking is a livelihood for many, mainly poor, women. For generations, African American women from Maryland’s rural, maritime communities labored for crab houses on the Eastern Shore. Today, fewer than 10 crab houses are left on the Shore. The workforce consists of mainly female migrant workers from Mexico who do the grueling job of picking crab for eight to nine hours a day, from late spring to early fall. They make on average of US$2.50 to $4.00 for every pound of crabmeat they pick. That pay is roughly one-tenth to one-twelfth of the wholesale price of one pound – or about a half of a kilogram – of the seafood they pick, which is $35 to $44. In comparison, the Maryland minimum wage is $13.25 an hour, while the federal minimum wage is $7.25.

[sataniccapitalist]

The True Cost of Our Food

In this Our Changing Climate climate change video essay, I look at the exploitation fueling our food system. Specifically, I dive into how prison labor has been used to grow and harvest food for cheap. In many cases, incarcerated people are paid very little or no wages for hours of grueling work in the fields. This system of unfree work is complimented by the millions of migrant farmworkers forced into unsafe and exploitative conditions across the United States. Migrant farmworkers are the main source of labor for large-scale vegetable and fruit farms throughout the country, yet due to a long history of racial capitalism, labor protections for the people that are the foundation of our food system are few and far between.

[ifelllikeastar]

In 1968, fighting for the rights of farmworkers, Cesar Chavez organized a five-year “grape boycott,” working to ensure better pay and working conditions. His work helped to change the lives of millions of farmworkers.

[curly-fried]

Class cannot be left out in discussions about islamphobia in Europe. Most islamphobia thats spoken about on Tumblr is in the context of Britain, France, Belgium the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Denmark, sweden and Norway. The history of these communities is found in the aftermath of the second world war. This is a period where much of these countries needed to be rebuild because of the air raids that took place during the second world war. The large amount of work needed and the civilian casualties during this war meant that there was a big labor shortage. In the end a lot of countries solved this problem by importing workers from their colonies and southern Europe. A lot of workers from Turkey went to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Scandinavia. And a lot of North African workers went to France and through France to the rest of Europe. Here the migrant workers worked long hours and faced abuse. The south European worked assimilated into the dominant cultures of their host countries because their whiteness allowed them to, while the Turkish and North African workers went on the be trapped into the cycle of poverty, many of them living in impoverished ethnic enclaves where they to this day are targeted by the police sent the bourgeois state while many of their children are forced into a life of crime by the poverty they have to endure. And this is why islamphobia in Europe is deeply intertwined with class

[eisbecherovka]

Bummed out about food supply chains and industrial agriculture again :/

[chaos-coming]

Have i mentioned recently how much i hate living in this stupid backwater excuse for a country? The power wemt out in my apartment, again, at 7pm on friday night. If this were a modern country i'd be fine, but this is austria so i'm fucked. Call the building manager, but he turns his work phone Off after 4pm. Straight to voicemail. Left him a bunch of upset voicemails about having no power, again. There is no nights/weekends manager. It looks like i will not have power until monday when this lazy austrian decides to check his phone. I hate this country so fucking much i cannot wait to move back to the 21st century

[townpostin]

Global Base Metal Conference Draws Jamshedpur Union Leaders

Kolkata hosts two-day event addressing industry challenges and trends Key Points: • Golmuri Tinplate Workers Union leaders attend Base Metal Sector conference • Event focuses on global industry issues, policies, and labor concerns • International representatives gather to discuss sector’s future JAMSHEDPUR – Two local union leaders have departed for a crucial international conference addressing…