Historic bill giving farmworkers overtime equity goes to governor

UFW

LARRY ITLIIONG and Cesar Chavez, the late founders of the United Farm Workers, would have been pleased. 

The California Assembly passed AB1066 - the bill that gives farmworkers the same overtime rights as other workers. If signed, it would be the first in the nation. All that it needs to make it a law is Gov. Jerry Brown's signature.

"Proud that the Assembly helped promote more justice, equity, fairness and dignity today by passing overtime for our hard-working and invaluable farmworkers," said Assemblymember Rob Bonta, chair of the API Legislative Caucus. 

Brown hasn't indicated where he stands on the issue. Despite signing the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act when he was governor before, from 1975 to 1983, and the former seminarian has frequently mentioned his close friendship with Cesar Chavez, during his current stint as governor, he has sided with agribusiness and vetoed legislation that the UFW supported.

An earlier version of the bill failed to garner enough votes in the Assembly but with a few tweaks that gave small farmers more time to phase in the overtime rules, Ab1066 was able to garner enough votes to pass, 44-32.

“Right now, under current law, we’re telling our farmworkers, ‘You are different than other workers. You are less than other workers. You are less valued and less valuable,’” said Bonta, whose parents organized Central Valley farmworkers for the UFW.

The bill proposes that the state phase in time-and-a-half pay for farm laborers who exceed eight hours in one day by 2022 on large farms and by 2025 for farms with 25 or fewer employees. Like other workers, farmworkers would be paid overtime if they work more than eight hours in a day or more than 40 hours in a week. It would affect about 400,000 agricultural workers. 

"We're asking for equality, eventually. It starts today however,” said Assemblymember Lorena Gonzales, one of the co-authors of AB1066.

To help persuade lawmakers sitting on the fence, the UFW brought hundreds of farmworkers today (Aug, 29) to the Capitol to help lobby for the measure.

Today's agricultural labor force is shifted dramatically since the days of the UFW's birth. It is more overwhelmingly Latino now compared to the 1960s when Filipinos instigated the 1965 Grape Strike. Most of the aged Filipino workers have retired. The Asian farmworkers have had their numbers n bolstered recently by new Hmong and Sikh immigrants in the Central Valley.

California legislators fast for farmworkers' overtime

Assemblyman Rob Bonta

EIGHT HOURS a day is a typical workday for most of us. Forty hours a week is the standard for most workweeks. Anything more than that constitutes overtime with pay commensurate with the extra work.

But ... not for farmworkers!

Amazing, right? It's 2016!

Harvesting your produce, picking your artichokes, tomatoes, fruit, lettuce is hard, backbreaking work. Yet working in the field in California is the only job where overtime is defined as 10 hours a day.

State Assemblyman Rob Bonta joined others in a fasting for farm workers movement — calling for the passage of AB1066, a bill that would expand overtime benefits for farm workers. The proposed legislation would bring farmworkers in line with other workers. It would  define overtime for farmworkers is anything over eight hours a day or more than a 40 hour week.

"It's a long struggle," he told a reporter. Mexican and Filipino farmworkers have worked for justice for all workers he pointed out. "It's going to be a close vote."

If passed, AB 1066 would gradually phase in new standards for farm workers, to lower the current 10-hour work day to eight, and ensure overtime pay when those hours are exceeded. The goal is to put workers in this industry in line with every other hourly job in the state.

An earlier version of the bill failed on the Assembly floor. For smaller family run farms, the new pay structure would be phased in over several years was an added to 1066 to make it more palatable to lawmakers from rural districts.

As legislation seeking fair pay and conditions for farm workers awaits approval on the senate floor, lawmakers across the state took part in a 24-hour fast to rally in support of AB 1066. 

Bonta's parents were union organizers for farmworkers and he was successful in passing legislation in 2014 to include the crucial role played by Filipino farmworkers in the farmworker strikes of the 1960s that led to the creation of the UFW and better working conditions for farmworkers. Last year, he passed a bill for a Larry Itliong Day to honor the Filipino/American union activist.

"It's a way to really bring attention to the fact of, and to the plight of the farm workers, not just on this overtime issue, but obviously on the conditions they are working under and to bring about this need for equality," said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, one of the bill's key authors.

The fast harkens back to the fast by Cesar Chavez which successfully brought attention to the working conditions of the Mexican and Filipino farmworkers. 

Wednesday morning the fast was broken with a service at the Cathedral of Blessed Sacrament in Downtown Sacramento. Gonzalez says it was a showcasing to bring awareness to the hardships that farm workers endure on a daily basis.

"It's a small sacrifice to symbolize the huge sacrifice that these workers make every day, to make sure that we have fresh fruits and vegetables on our table," Gonzalez said.

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Grape strike anniversary: Delano '"is our Selma."

Cesar Chavez, left, and Larry Itliong united two rival unions to launch the Grape Strike and Boycott..

FIFTY YEARS AGO, today, Sept. 7, Filipino farmworkers in Delano, Calif. voted to go on strike: Leave the grapes on the vine, walk out on their livelihood, suffer the consequences of no paycheck.

To Delano resident Roger Gadiano, the nondescript Filipino Hall in town is a shrine. “This is our Mecca,” he says. “I guess it’s our Selma. This is it!” Because in this building, on the night of Sept. 7, 1965, farmworkers voted to go on strike the next day. They were almost all Filipino.

You have to remember, back then, farm workers didn't even have portapotties in the fields, no water breaks, no shade for breaks. They had to use the short-handed hoe to cut  asparagus and strawberries, requiring workers to stay in a bent-over position all day and they worked for minimum wage, which was a little more than a dollar an hour.

Journalist Lisa Morehouse recently visited Delano, where the strike began, and did a podcast for KQED that's pretty good.

I remember, growing up in California, when the strike started Filipinos and sympathizers everywhere rallied around the farm workers. Table grapes disappeared from our dining room table. 

My dad and his friends, though not farm workers,  would buy groceries from the commissary at the Oakland Army Base. He loaded them in the trunk of his old Buick and then haul them over to Stockton and Delano for the farm workers.

To this day, I still avoid certain wine products because the grapes were grown by the worst growers.

RELATED: Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Grape Strike 

Delano's chapter of the Filipino American National History Society along with other groups planned a series of activities to commemorate the anniversary this weekend. 

Assemblyman Rob Bonta, the only Filipino American serving in the California legislature and the son of union organizers, sponsored and passed a bill requiring this chapter  of California history be taught in school and a day was set aside in October to honor Larry Itliong, who spearheaded the strike.

"It's really on us. It's our story," said the late historian Dawn Mabalon. "It's our story,"

If you can't make it to Delano today, this Labor Day, it is appropriate that we remember this seminal moment in labor history, in Filipino/American history - hell - American history.

Listen, remember, honor - then act.

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CONTINUE THE CELEBRATION!

The Labor Day celebration launches a year of observances. The next event will be on Sept. 26 at Agbayani Village, the retirement home for farm workers.

The United Farm Workers will have an all-day celebration at the historic site, from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015, outside Delano at the farm workers’ “Forty Acres” complex, now a National Historic Landmark.

Click here to register!

For more information about the event or to tell others where they can go to attend, visit http://delanograpestrike.org.

DETAILS:
What: 50th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike
When: Saturday, September 26, from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Where: Forty Acres
             30168 Garces Highway
             Delano, CA 93215

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Celebration of the 50th anniversary of Delano grape strike this Labor Day weekend.

Filipino/American labor leader Larry Itliong, left, and Cesar Chavez, right, joined forces.

THE MOMENTOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF THE Grape Strike of 1965 cannot be underestimated. It is important not only in the annals of Filipino American history, but in the history of the United States. Appropriately, the event will be observed and celebrated this Labor Day Weekend in Delano, California, where the strike began.

The newly formed Delano chapter and its parent organization, the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), will host a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Delano Grape Strike with a series of events this Sept. 5 and 6, in Delano with most of the activities centering around the Filipino Community Hall where the historic vote to strike and launch the grape boycott took place.

Dubbed “Bold Step,” the weekend will focus on that momentous decision to strike, and celebrate the strike’s legacy in the Filipino American community in Delano and across the nation. 

The weekend’s events will kick off on Saturday, Sept. 5 at the Filipino Community Hall, the historic building where the strike vote was taken and the headquarters of the first years of the Grape Strike. The program will include presentations by strike veterans, scholars, community activists, and local community leaders. A highlight of the weekend will be a screening of the Emmy-award winning documentary, Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes of the United Farm Workers. New York-based filmmaker Marissa Aroy, whose family roots are in Delano, will be present. The weekend will also include bus tours of local historic sites.

Click here for a complete schedule of events marking this anniversary.

The Delano Grape Strike began on September 8, 1965, when thousands of mostly Filipino American grape workers walked off of the vineyards in Delano, California. According to the AmerAsia Journal, it was a pivotal moment in which Filipino/Americans made their largest and most significant imprint on the American labor history. That bold step taken by these Filipino workers — most of whom were senior citizens in the twilight of their lives — inspired labor movements and movements for civil rights and social justice amongst Filipino Americans and Americans of all backgrounds.

The Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee union (AWOC, AFL-CIO), led by labor leaders such as Larry Itliong, Pete Velasco, Andy Imutan and Philip Vera Cruz, forced the larger union made up mostly of Mexican American workers and led by Cesar Chavez, to join the boycott. The merger of the two unions led to the formation of the one of the most significant social justice movements in American history. From the strike came the multiethnic farm laborer’s union, the United Farm Workers.

In 1965, Filipino/American farm workers took the bold step to strike and launch a boycott of table grapes.

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Today in history: Why were Selma marchers wearing Hawaiian leis?

Civil rights struggle linked Asians and African Americans

The picture above is a famous one published in history books and recollections of this weekend 50 years ago when a band of protestors marched arm-in-arm across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama resulting in a day of notoriety that became known as "Bloody Sunday."

On this occasion, speeches and reenactments recalled that day. President Obama walked across the bridge with some of the original marchers, his family and dozens of other politicians.

I've always wondered what the deal was with Hawaiian leis worn by Martin Luther King and others in the front ranks. Now I know the rest of the story thanks to an article in the Daily Beast. 

The Asian American community is often the forgotten factor when discussing the Civil Rights Movement. Now we know that the community was not just sitting around wondering if the civil rights people were dying and bleeding for also included them. 

Now we know. The leis are a visible link between the broader Civil Rights Movement and the Asian Americans. We were there, in spirit and in body.

The actions of the marchers and protestors in the South influenced the actions of people across the nation, including the Latino and Filipino farmworkers who in 1965 were fighting for their rights for better working conditions.

While the struggles in the California farm fields didn't receive the national attention of the protests in the South, they were all part of the same movement. Leaders like Larry Itliong, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez saw it all part of the same movement; the struggle for justice and human rights.

So - my nephews and nieces and anyone else reading this - Asian Americans were not silent at that time, they were not bystanders when black protestors were getting their heads bashed in and sprayed with water hoses - Filipinos were also getting beat up and threatened with the loss of their jobs. They were activists, fighters for the right to be treated like human beings. 

RELATED: 

President Obama: 'There are places, and moments in America where this nation's destiny has been decided ... Selma is such a place.'

Who was Grace Lee Boggs and what was her role in the civil rights struggle?

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