A Week at Campo de Justicia - By Kelly Hayes-Raitt

Camp Justice Daily Diary – Friday

Animo.  It’s one of those Spanish words that has no direct English translation.  It’s a verb, a noun, an adjective, depending on who I ask.

“Strength.”  “Fearless.”  “Go for it.”

Whatever it means, there sure is plenty of it here at Campo de Justicia.  Last night, hundreds – yes, hundreds – of farmworkers trekked out to 40 Acres in Delano to find out more about the union.  Heads nodded as workers recognized each other’s indignities.  After a grueling day that began in the fields at 6:30 this morning, here they were 12, 13, 14 hours later cheering each other on with “si se puede” chants and lingering over enchiladas as they filled out union volunteer cards.  These are the hardest working people in America vowing to work harder so they can have just the basics – a living wage, health insurance, bathrooms.  The room oozed animo.

“Enthusiasm.”  “Power.”

In fact, animo is everywhere here.  You can read it in the smiles of the 40 Camp Justice activists who traveled from all over the country as they rise at 5:00 to meet workers in the fields.  Many of these campers are professional organizers with other unions, who volunteered to come to California to do more of what they do at work.  Others are long-standing UFW leaders, people who, decades ago, helped create the very union we continue to build, leaders who never give up and never get tired.  Others represent the next generation of social change leaders, students in the teens and twenties overflowing with hope and possibility.  Others are people like me, caught in between life’s responsibilities and see a unique opportunity to touch lives.  Animo blankets our camp.

“Invigorated.”  “Enraged.”  “Indignant.”

You can hear the animo in the empowering solidarity claps from the army of UFW organizers who are working farm by farm to move workers toward a union election.

You can see it in the dedication the organization’s board members bring.  Week Two of Camp Justice coincided with UFW’s quarterly board meeting. We infected each other.  Animo seems highly contagious.

In the end, I learned animo isn’t something explained;  it’s something experienced.  And there is plenty of it to feel here at Camp Justice. 

Daily Diary From Camp Justice - Thursday

 The UFW has been at the forefront of organizing California's farmworkers since the mid-60s.  It's a challenge.  Growers lease their land to sub-contractors, who become the workers' new employer, or change their corporate entity, evading responsibility for past transgressions.  Workers, who may be undocumented, are spread over several miles, moving from day to day and from crew to crew.  The window to organize them is as short as the harvest season, a time when there is much pressure to bring in the crops.  And the workers themselves are migratory, moving from crop to crop, city to city as the seasons shift.

Some growers deny workers shade.  Others deny bathrooms.  Others deny sick pay or health benefits.  I spoke with a woman who had been bitten by a snake while picking grapes, went to the hospital, missed three days of work, and was denied three crucial days' salary.  A man told me he and his coworkers just got a bathroom, after years of requesting one, now that the UFW is organizing at his vineyard.

Legal gains have been made, however.  UFW organizers have access to the workers in the field just before and after the workday, and during the floating lunch period, for only 30 days after the union files a request to the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board.  Once the union has collected support cards from 50 percent of the workers, they can call for an election.

But, an election win doesn't always guarantee a contract.  Some growers drag their negotiating feet.  D'Arrigo Bros., one of California's biggest agribusinesses, has strung along its workers since 1977!  Yesterday, the California Supreme Court upheld a lower ruling to force growers to negotiate in good faith or face mandatory mediation.

For years, the growers had wormed their way through the legal system to overturn - or at least postpone - their legal requirement to come to terms on a contract.  Growers profit from the status quo;  the longer they stall, the more they make, and the more farmworkers and their families lose.

The court's ruling will shake the Central Valley's fundamental bearings like a San Andreas fault line.  Finally, farmworkers who have fought for the right to negotiate the terms of their employment will be able to do exactly that. 

That's joyous news for us here at Campo de Justicia.

“The union has already changed our lives,” said Sabas Arredondo, 42,referring to his job at Lucich vineyard, which is not unionized.  “The owner is making promises.  Many of us didn't know who he was.  One of my coworkers said when the owner asked him 'Do you know who I am?' he answered, 'No, but you don't know who I am either!'”

The president is also making the rounds.  “The president never stopped to talk with us (before the union started organizing here),” Sabas said.  “Now he surprises us at 6:00 in the morning!”

“He's scared,” his wife said.  Or an insomniac.

So begins the owner's courtship of his newfound friends.  Once the UFW starts making inroads, owners respond with a few perks, a few threats, a few promises, a few tender familiarities.  Yesterday, Lucich's owner told Sabas he was “family.”  Today, he gave them a bathroom, although they had been asking for one for years.  

He and his wife, Lucila Lopez, 47, visited the UFW headquarters at 40 Acres for the first time tonight to learn more about the union, air their grievances and learn how to get a “better contract, better wages, medical insurance, job security and self-respect.”

“Our children are happy” we're organizing for the union, said Lucila of their nine children and eight grandchildren.

“They say it's a good thing for my wife and me,” Sabas said, “but we're thinking about them.  We want to provide them with better education, better food, a better place to live - a better life.  That's what motivates us.”

Are they worried their new “farmowner family” might fire them for their union activities?  “No,” responded Sabas dismissively.  “We don't care if we get fired.  We're going to accomplish something great.…Just by being with the United Farm Workers, we already accomplished that.” 

Daily Diary from Camp Justice --Monday

Thirty years ago, Cesar Chavez and a dedicated troop of organizers changed the way Americans think about food.  For the first time since the end of the Ag Age, we were forced to consider the human costs of bringing cheap grapes to our tables.  The Grape Boycott may have made history, but it didn’t change the economic harvest corporate growers reaped.

Thirty years later, the struggle continues.  In an homage to Chavez, the United Farm Workers have embarked on an ambitious campaign called “Otra Vez” (“Once Again”) to organize farmworkers in California’s Central Valley.

I am here at Campo de Justicia (Camp Justice), on the fringes of Delano where the air smells like an earthy mixture of pregnant grapes and cow dung.  I join 40 compañeros from throughout California – and the country – in sowing seeds for a new history, one that grows spirits as successfully as pistachios.

Every morning at 5:30, we race the dawn to meet workers in the dusty fields as they tie their scarves around their mouths, don their fruit-stained gloves and prepare for another searing day of picking.  We traipse over dry, mud-caked lanes to speak to as many workers as possible before the mayordomo (crew foreman) arrives to officially start the day.

By 7:00, we are back at Campo, debriefing, eating breakfast and gearing up for our next kamikaze ride through the labyrinth fields to find crews that we haven’t yet spoken with. We’re like meteorologists seeding clouds for an overdue rain, speaking one-on-one, sparking hope and collecting authorization cards from nearly everyone we speak with.  We crawl through grape vines in search of the next worker fed up enough with feeding America, but not his or her own family. 

In the afternoons, we literally take our campaign to the streets, creating “Block Parties” along commuter routes to waylay farmworkers heading home.  We hand out bottles of water at stop signs, urging workers to pull over and sign authorization cards.  And they do!  Today alone, over 300 workers signed up at the side of the road. 

And the numbers grow – as long as there are volunteers to ask them.  Each day, each week, each volunteer here at Campo de Justicia adds to the momentum to change the course of history’s future.  Come join us.

# # # # #

Kelly Hayes-Raitt, a political communication organizer from Los Angeles, is volunteering at Campo de Justicia this week and will be blogging and sending photos daily.  To read more of her political travels, including her trips to Iraq, visit www.CommunityCampaigns.com.