Our Campaigns

Our work includes outreach, organizing, training, and direct action, focused on our campaigns:

  1. End forced meal plans
  2. Policy advocacy in the US and Mexico, including ending corruption in the H2A program, protecting workers’ rights in the US, and ensuring access to services in Mexico
  3. Not One More Death (campaign against heat stress)

END FORCED MEAL PLANS

Growers often hire supervisors who require workers to purchase meal plans from the supervisor’s wife. Workers are charged $90-$120 per week for inadequate meals (often only 2 meals per day, 6 days per week) and then locked out of their kitchens, leaving them with no choice but to pay for the meal plans. These cooks are typically not certified to prepare food and may not follow sanitary guidelines.

EFEN/ IOF is building a long-term campaign to stop forced meal plans by educating workers, government agencies, and the broader community in the counties where these labor camps are located.

In the various labor camps where there are currently unresolved meal plan complaints, we will help workers act collectively to file a formal complaint with the grower; and, where necessary, escalate action by using additional formal steps in the CBA complaint procedure, filing complaints with the local health department, and organizing direct action and refusal to pay for inadequate meal plans.

POLICY ADVOCACY IN THE U.S. AND IN MEXICO

The vast majority of our members are Mexican nationals. As international workers, EFEN members believe that we should advocate not just in the United States but also in our communities of origin. Since our beginning, we have pushed for improved working and living conditions, not only in the United States, but also in Mexico. In 2023 we began holding meetings with the Mexican Consulate, and later we expanded to meetings with government lawmakers in order to push three major issues for workers.  In 2024, EFEN supported who are Mexican workers in the US exercising their to right to vote in the exterior. And for the first time ever, workers living in the US at the time of the election could cast their vote in the consulate of Raleigh. 

Our three major policy issues are:

A. Corruption within the guestworker program

B. Worker protections while in the United States

C. Equal access to social programs in Mexico

    A. End corruption in the H2A program

    Corruption occurs at nearly every level within the H2A program, from the initial recruiting stage, on the border as workers cross into the United States, in the fields by supervisors, and even in the FLOC union.

    El Futuro Es Nuestro / IOF pledges to report and fight corruption and bribery practices within the program in all levels and sites.

      B. Protection for workers’ rights

    As Mexican nationals, we are to be guaranteed a specific level of protections and conditions in our recruitment.  Recruiters and employers promise certain working conditions that are later not met.  The Mexican government should provide assistance with legal defense funds, resources for health wellness, and body transfers, as well as should make public stances against trafficking within the visa program.  

    C. Equal access to national, local and statewide social programs

    Members of IOF have reported that they get discriminated against when applying for certain social programs in their home communities due to the fact that they are migrant workers.  They do not have access to the Mexican Social security plan, nor the bien estar (wellness) programs as they should.  EFEN is pushing for workers equal access to government programs irregardless of their status within Mexico.  

    NOT ONE MORE DEATH / NI UNA VIDA MAS

    Climate change is having a detrimental impact on low-wage workers across the globe, especially for outside workers, as rising temperatures make agricultural and other outdoor work more dangerous. We are seeing more deaths in the fields and this has become a major priority for our work. To respond to this crisis, we:

    • Collaborate with allied groups to conduct health awareness and access events.
    • Arrange transportation, interpretation, and translation for workers to medical appointments.
    • Fight retaliation when workers are fired or punished for being sick or injured.
    • Provide temporary housing for workers who are displaced from their homes due to illness

    For more details about our Ni Una Vida Mas campaign, please read this report.