Bakersfield Californian

UFW volunteers camped out to talk about labor issues

Dozens of volunteer union organizers with the United Farm Workers of America are camped in a special area called Camp Justice in Delano to help educate Central Valley farmworkers about labor issues.

The organizers have been camped out in tents since Sept. 3 at the organization's parklike Forty Acres facility at Garces Highway and Mettler Avenue, west of Highway 99, according to a news release from Kelly Hayes-Raitt, a volunteer and spokeswoman for the UFW Delano's office.

Hayes-Raitt said organizers will continue to interact with thousands of local farmworkers through Sept. 23, talking to them before and after work and during lunch breaks about their rights, any grievances and the benefits of unionizing.

Hayes-Raitt said volunteers from as far away as Atlantic City, N.J., have participated in the camp.

For more information, call the UFW Delano office at 725-9730, ext. 104, or visit www.ufw.org.