Sweatshop Hall of Shame 2010

As we approach the holidays, a time consumed with buying, I thought "Sweatshop Hall of Shame" was appropriate to share.

As people of faith, we cannot turn a blind eye to how our actions affect others. When considering how you use your (buying) power, please think about the people that are affected the most. Buy from companies that pay fair wages and care about the safety of their workers. Its so easy to only think about getting the best deal, but often the shirt or tomato that was such a great steal was sold that cheap thanks to the wage theft or other violations of low-wage workers.

Also, good companies are forced out of business by the companies who save money by stealing wages and not providing a safe workplace.

Sweatshop Hall of Shame 2010

And a few resources I found for looking up the business practices of specific companies (let me know what sites I'm missing):
Crocodyl - Collaborative Research on Corporations
Business and Human Rights Resource Center
Ethical Corporation

Check it out: IPTV had a piece on farmworkers in FL!

Article: "Forgotten Corners of the Economy"

Another dead day on the street corner and Gonzalo Mejia is wondering how he will get by. He's been finding work just one or two days a week lately. Worse yet, a contractor recently stiffed him out of $400 worth of pay.

"All the time there is less work," grumbles Mejia, a short, muscular man in his mid-50s. His pals nod in agreement as they wait like hawks, ready to swoop down on the next contractor who pulls up. But it's well past 9 A.M., only three cars have trolled by in search of workers, and hardly anyone has budged off the street.

Yet it is not just the disappearance of work that troubles him and the 150 or so men killing time at Milwaukee and Belmont, once Chicago's busiest street corner for day laborers. Everything has become so difficult, so frustrating, so dangerous. For workers with minimal protections against employers who steal from their wages or sometimes leave them dead or maimed, life has lately become bare existence.... More

Fun facts about Miami - enjoy!

(Found in This Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power in Miami by Alex Stepick, et al.)

• Miami has the highest proportion of foreign-born residents of any major metropolitan area in the United States, proportionally 50% more than either Los Angeles or New York.
• Over 70% of Miami's population are either first-generation (48.6%) or second-generation (22.9%) immigrants.
• In the wake of every crisis in Latin America, the Miami Latino population grows.
• While Miami has only 5% of the total US Latino population, it has close to half of the 40 largest Latino owned industrial and commercial firms in the country.
• Nearly 50% of US exports to the Caribbean and Central America and over 30% of US exports to South America pass through Miami.
• Miami's airport is the top US airport for international freight, with more nonstop cargo flights to Latin Ameirca and the Caribbean than Orlando, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Tampa and New York's Kennedy Airport combined.
• The airport also has more airlines than any other airport in the Western Hemisphere,a nd it is frequently easier to get from one Latino American country to another by going through Miami than by flying direct.

Opinion piece on farmworkers in Florida

The Daily Texan > Opinion

The Texas Union and slavery

By Kandace Vallejo
Daily Texan Guest Columnist

Published: Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The day after Thanksgiving 1960, millions of Americans tuned into the landmark documentary “Harvest of Shame.” Narrated by Edward Murrow, the legendary pioneer of television news broadcasting, the report provided viewers with vivid portrayals of the degradation experienced daily by migrant farmworkers throughout the U.S. In an iconic soundbite, one produce grower casually explained, “We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them.”

Very little has changed in 50 years. For example, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders notes that “the norm is a disaster, and the extreme is slavery” for tomato harvesters in Florida. The picking piece rate has remained stagnant since 1980. A worker today must pick and haul roughly two and a half tons of tomatoes to earn minimum wage for a typical 10-hour day.

These wages, combined with the precarious nature of farm labor and virtually nonexistent legal protections, result in workers’ sub-poverty annual earnings and create an environment where abuses as extreme as slavery can flourish.

Slavery. As in seven prosecuted cases involving 15 farm employers and over 1000 workers – native-born and immigrant alike – in the last decade. In the most recent case, a dozen workers escaped from a box truck in Immokalee, Florida where they were being held against their will, beaten, chained and forced to pick tomatoes for little or no pay. After successfully prosecuting their enslavers, U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy acknowledged that the handful of cases that have come to light are “just the tip of the iceberg.”

At the forefront of today’s abolition movement is an award-winning farmworker’s organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Their anti-slavery efforts have been praised by Florida Governor Charlie Crist, FBI Director Robert Mueller, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and leading trafficking experts the world over. The CIW is not only the undisputed leader in uncovering slavery cases in Florida’s fields., it is also advancing a strategic program to eliminate the systemic poverty and powerlessness that lie at the heart of the state’s agricultural industry.

On Sept. 25, the CIW and Compass Group North America announced sweeping changes to improve tomato harvesters’ wages and working conditions. Compass is the first major foodservice provider to join Yum Brands, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, and Whole Foods Market in partnering with the CIW to address the human rights crisis in Florida’s fields.

These innovative agreements harness the market power of large retailers to improve labor standards in their tomato supply chains.

Yet Aramark – the foodservice provider of the Texas Union – remains on the sidelines. On its Web site, Aramark claims to “conduct business … according to the highest ethical standard.” With news of the Compass agreement, Aramark can no longer claim that it meets the highest ethical standard. If it wishes to retain the goodwill of students and the broader Austin community, Aramark should, with all due diligence, establish an agreement with the CIW to demand those same higher standards of its tomato suppliers. Until that time, Aramark will continue to play an indefensible and unnecessary role in prolonging Florida’s harvest of shame.

Vallejo is a cultural studies in education graduate student.

Recent Deportations in Miami-Dade County

There have been a lot of deportation in Homestead, which is a suburb and major agricultural area just South of Miami.

Angela, a woman I met recently, woke up at 5am to have her home surrounded by armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and local police officers who pounded on the door, saying if she didn't open up they would knock the door down. Angela was terrified and opened the door. ICE then went through her entire home, searching, going through bedding and closets. When she asked what they were looking for, they wouldn't say. Turns out they were looking for her husband. Her 8-year-old, Benny, ran out into the yard, climbed a tree, and -only knowing that armed gunmen had entered their home- started shouting “Criminales! Criminales!” from the tree. An ICE agent told him to get down from the tree, but he wouldn't. The ICE agent then threatened to deport him, his two brothers, and his mother if he didn’t get down. This agent, who’s salary is paid by us- the taxpayers- threatened a child who is (by the way) a US Citizen, as are his siblings. His mother has legal status in this country, with Temporary Protected Status.

Angela's husband, Benito, came home from work at 6:30, and was immediately taken into custody. Benito has a valid work permit and has been trying to process his immigration paperwork for years. It seems that he was taken advantage of by an unscrupulous notary public.

I had a conversation with a pastor recently that I’ve been reflecting on a lot. If your child was hungry or sick, what would you do for them? If you couldn’t find work that would save them, what would you do? If someone told you that you couldn’t move to the U.S. where you could work, where you could make the money that could save your child, would you say, “Okay, that’s that. I guess my child will have to starve”? No. I cannot believe that anyone would choose to give up, to refrain from breaking some man-made law and give up on their child’s chance at health and life.

Pray for the families in Homestead.

Luncheon for Women's Fund Grantees

Today I went to a luncheon for the Women’s Fund of Miami. What a wonderful beginning to my work in Miami! These luncheons happen four times a year for grantee organizations of the Women’s Fund. A room full of hard-working representatives of amazing organizations that serve women in Miami. Awesome.

We were split into smaller groups to discuss what our own organizations are doing, and how our organizations can work together in the future. As I've just started working with the Miami Workers' Center and South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice, I could only speak briefly about what I knew, and then sit and listen to passionate, intelligent women talk about their own organizations.

Of my small group, there was a variety of organizations represented- such as an organization that promotes breast cancer prevention for low-income individuals, and a resource center and residential facility for homeless women and infants. It was so wonderful to have a chance to hear about the other programs in the Miami area, and to meet some of the passionate individuals who work for them.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

Prayer of Archbishop Romero

Welcome to my new blog! I chose to name my blog "We are workers" because of the Prayer of Archbishop Romero (which is posted below).

Especially after serving in the Philippines, I go into this year very aware of the American preoccupation for working and fixing things. I come to Miami and into a new year as a Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) to learn from my new community; and to give whatever skills, talents, and passion I have. Archbishop Romero's prayer reminds me that I am here temporarily. I am trying to do go and to serve others, but I am just one of a larger, long-term community that is working to fulful the master builder's plans.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me as a YAV, I am so excited to start this year!

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.