Category: News / En la Prensa

Luchando por el derecho de regresar a trabajar by Eli Porras Carmona, March 16, 2024, Jornaler@s Mexican@s en Estados Unidos

“La razón más grande de la existencia de tantos abusos por el programa H-2A es la facilidad de los patrones para castigar a los trabajadores agrícolas que se quejan o defienden sus derechos laborales y humanos. Los trabajadores entienden que el derecho de regresar año con año no existe, y por esto muchos trabajadores no se quejan cuando sufren de alguna injusticia. En el año 2004, pensamos que esto cambiaría en Carolina del Norte, Estados Unidos, al luchar por un contrato colectivo entre la North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA) y nuestro sindicato, el Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). Desafortunadamente el sindicato no ha hecho su trabajo y ahora muchos de nosotros tenemos que luchar por el derecho de regresar a trabajar, cuando los patrones quieren tomar represalias contra nosotros. Esto lo estamos haciendo por medio de la organización El Futuro es Nuestro, una organización que trabaja contra las injusticias que sufren los trabajadores H-2A en Carolina del Norte.”

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https://elfuturoesnuestro.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Suplemento-Del-Campo-198-web-2.pdf

Women, people of color hold majority on Governor Cooper’s new environmental justice council, NC Newsline/The Pulse, Dec. 18 2023

https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/women-people-of-color-hold-majority-on-gov-coopers-new-environmental-justice-council/

IOF congratulates our own Justin Flores on being appointed to this new council!

“Gov. Roy Cooper announced his 11 appointees to the new N.C. Environmental Justice Advisory Council today; seven of them are women and 10 are non-white.

The governor created the new 22-member EJ Advisory Council in October,  as part of Executive Order 292, “Advancing Environmental Justice for North Carolina.” Housed within the governor’s office, the new group expands on the Environmental Justice & Equity Advisory Board that was under the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.”

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Migrant farmworkers in NC face a challenging system by Claudia Rivera Cotto and Grace Vitagolione, Carolina Public Press, Dec 12, 2023

https://carolinapublicpress.org/62478/migrant-farmworkers-nc-power-dynamics/?fbclid=IwAR0bc2b9e02gzQQkGd5LOJerUkRHQGZIvuXduGMn89TJowbw24bYr3yImbE

“Eleazar was 24 in 2014, when he began working seasonally with a H-2A visa for temporary farmworkers at a tobacco farm in Benson, North Carolina.

Eleazar, who requested that only his first name be published for fear of retaliation, lived in a bunker with 49 other workers, without a cooling or heating system.

The now 33-year-old described how workers often suffered illnesses that they blamed on continued exposure to nicotine in the tobacco, as well as symptoms from heat in the fields.”

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Migrant worker’s death prompts calls for extreme heat labor laws by Anne Blythe, WFAE (Charlotte’s NPR News Source), Nov. 14, 2023

https://www.wfae.org/race-equity/2023-11-14/migrant-workers-death-prompts-calls-for-extreme-heat-labor-laws

“As the sun dipped toward the horizon, pulling the last streaks of daylight from the sky over North Carolina’s capital city, dozens of migrant workers raised flickering tealights.

They gathered with advocates a bit more than a stone’s throw from offices of the state Department of Labor to rally for measures to protect workers from extreme heat in agricultural fields, the food service industry, construction, transportation and warehousing jobs.”

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Exigen Justicia por los trabajadores agrícolas fallecidos en Carolina del Norte by Walter Gómez, Enlace Latino NC, November 6, 2023 

https://enlacelatinonc.org/exigen-justicia-por-los-trabajadores-agricolas-fallecidos-en-carolina-del-norte/?fbclid=IwAR1vvYERz844D4262Sb4JB9ra42obwpYUFvm5Fq09ZK1HpblcT64DBKEXp8

“Más de 200 trabajadores agrícolas firmaron una petición exigiendo a la Asociación de Granjeros de Carolina del Norte (NCGA, por su sigla en inglés) que protejan la salud y vida de los trabajadores agrícolas en el estado. Esto debido al fallecimiento de al menos cinco trabajadores agrícolas en Carolina del Norte en lo que va de este 2023.

Uno de ellos es José Arturo González Mendoza, quien murió a comienzos del mes de septiembre por presunta deshidratación mientras laboraba en la cosecha de batatas en Barnes Farming & Farm Pak. Una granja ubicada en Spring Hope, en Carolina del Norte.”

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Migrant farmworkers help NC farms survive. But some end up abused, lawsuits say. By Gavin Off and Aaron Sánchez-Guerra, Charlotte Observer, October 12, 2023

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article280018484.html?fbclid=IwAR2ECzFG25qGRYYagGiluebeUqo1otsBWFuyMEtObQtDwLpwDLbDtypaPls

“A visa program designed to protect and provide for temporary farm workers has been used to abuse them in North Carolina, according to nine federal lawsuits filed since 2017. Every year, thousands of migrant workers, drawn to the U.S. by the promise of good money, leave small towns across Mexico for the farm fields of North Carolina. Issued by the U.S. Department of Labor, the visas they hold, called H-2A visas, require paid transportation, $14.91 an hour currently, and clean housing while workers remain in the country up to 10 months at a time.”

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Trabajador agrícola mexicano muere en campo de Carolina del Norte by Kayla Young, La Noticia, Sept. 7, 2023

https://lanoticia.com/noticias/trabajador-agricola-mexicano-muere-en-campo-de-carolina-del-norte/?fbclid=IwAR2yNSLoVIHX8DdZSiMXQDnH88QsoGSlOubS_x3s0BFxXYvQOD3QvldEToA

“El Departamento de Trabajo de Carolina del Norte está investigando la muerte de un trabajador agrícola de Guanajuato, México, el 5 de septiembre por la mañana en el condado de Nash. 

José Arturo González Mendoza, de 30 años, se encontraba en Carolina del Norte con una visa H-2A para trabajadores agrícolas temporales.”

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There is slavery in the fields of North Carolina by Tina Vásquez, Prism, August 29, 2023

https://prismreports.org/2023/08/29/slavery-fields-north-carolina-h-2a/

““I’ll never forget something that advocate and former farmworker Leticia Zavala said to me during an interview. 

“There is slavery in the fields of North Carolina.” She said it almost in passing, as part of a larger laundry list of abusive and deadly conditions experienced by farmworkers in the state as part of the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program, a guest worker program overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that allows American employers to temporarily hire migrant workers to perform agricultural work. A whopping 90% of these workers hail from Mexico. This is not surprising, given that the H-2A program is an iteration of the Bracero Program, a bilateral agreement with Mexico that, from 1942 to 1964, allowed for the temporary entry of millions of migrants to perform agricultural labor in the U.S. The program was ultimately abolished because of systemic wage theft, abuse, and exploitation. Lee G. Williams, the DOL official in charge at the time, described the Bracero Program as “legalized slavery.“‘

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News story on WUNC 91.5, August 16, 2023

https://www.wunc.org/2023-08-16/workers-are-at-risk-in-extreme-heat-but-north-carolina-has-no-protections

Workers are at risk in extreme heat, but North Carolina has no protections by David Boraks and Kayla Young

“The past two weeks have seen some of the year’s hottest weather in North Carolina with temperatures in the high 90s and “feels like” heat index values in parts of the state over 110. Extreme heat is a risk for workers, but like most states North Carolina has no standards or regulations to protect them. As the situation worsens with global warming, advocates say it’s time for that to change.

In Wilson County, about 40 miles east of Raleigh, Abel Cruz and his coworkers were picking tobacco one day last week. The temperature was in the low 90s, and even hotter when they’re working under the plants, Cruz said.”

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