UNITED STATES
Kennedy Centre Honours Migrant Workers' Advocates
by Miriam Kagan
WASHINGTON — Three leaders of a Florida-based centre that fights exploitation of agricultural migrant workers, former migrant workers themselves, won a major U.S. human rights award in November.
Julia Gabriel, Lucas Benitez and Romeo Ramirez from the Florida State-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) were awarded the prestigious Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award, the first time in its 20-year history the honour has gone to individuals from a U.S.-based group.
Presented by the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Memorial Centre for Human Rights, the award spotlights outstanding human rights defenders. Past recipients have included activists from Colombia, Liberia, China, Vietnam, India and Israel.
"This year we recognise, for the first time, three persons who fight against gross abuses of human rights in our own land," Sen Edward Kennedy, brother of Robert Kennedy, told the awards ceremony. "They came to the United States from Mexico and Guatemala, seeking a better life. Instead, they found unspeakable hardship."
"Today, they speak for tens of thousands like them. They open our eyes to the plight of America's most exploited, lowest paid and least protected among us — the migrant workers who labour in brutal conditions in fields across America," Kennedy added.
The senator called the treatment of migrants in the United States, "a shameful chapter in American history", adding that, "the cruel disease of exploitation has infected other sectors of our economy, and even the aisles of Wal-Mart".
The arrest of over 300 undocumented workers employed by a contractor of mega-department store Wal-Mart in October fixed attention on the plight of thousands of undocumented workers in the country.
A 1996 study by the department of labour estimated there were at least 1.4 million migrant workers in the United States. But one group puts the figure much higher.
John Keeley of the Centre of Immigrant Studies told IPS it is very difficult to estimate the number of migrant workers because their jobs are seasonal and workers cross in and out of the country from Mexico.
But, he added, a recent agricultural growers' survey found that at least one-half of all agricultural workers are illegal aliens, numbering "at least in the hundreds of thousands".
Estimates also indicate that 18,000 to 20,000 people are sold into the country every year as agricultural slaves.
Working conditions for agricultural labourers are often deplorable.
According to the CIW, tomato pickers in Florida pick two tonnes of produce a day, earn 7,500 dollars a year (1,500 dollars below the official poverty level), live in cramped trailers with no telephone or heat, get paid no overtime or sick leave, and do not have access to health insurance.
Because of constant exposure to pesticides in the fields, the workers have some of the highest cancer rates in the country, according to Kerry Kennedy, founder of the RFK Memorial Centre.
This year's award winners struggled through their own migrant experience.
When Julia Gabriel arrived in the United States from Guatemala in 1992, she was held captive by her South Carolina State employers.
Gabriel was forced to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week and received net pay of 20 dollars a week. She and her fellow workers were regularly threatened and beaten by crew leaders who kept the migrants under armed guard.
After escaping from the camp, Gabriel testified in federal court against her crew leaders, who were sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The second winner, Lucas Benitez, has earned the title 'Cesar Chavez for the New Millennium', for advocating for the rights of migrant workers. (A 1960s migrant worker leader, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association.)
In his acceptance speech, Benitez promised to continue to fight so migrant workers could live out the promise of the U.S. Declaration of Independence — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Benitez added that it is appalling that a country that promotes freedom and persecutes human rights violators around the globe has thousands of people working in "third-world sweatshop conditions" at home.
As part of their call to action, the CIW and the Kennedy Memorial Centre are sponsoring a boycott of the fast-food chain Taco Bell, under the rallying cry of 'un centavo mas' (one cent more).
At the awards ceremony news conference, Benitez said the action was because Taco Bell, the single largest consumer of tomatoes in the United States, buys the fruit from suppliers who continue to exploit migrant workers.
According to Benitez, tomato prices have not changed since 1978. But if companies paid just one cent more per pound of tomatoes, the increase would allow migrant workers to earn a liveable wage.
Taco Bell is also being targeted "to remind each and every one of us that we can make a difference, that consumer choices can make a difference, and that corporations have a moral responsibility to society", said Todd Howard, director of the RFK Centre.
Taco Bell claims "the coalition's efforts are misdirected at our company, as these farm workers do not work for Taco Bell, they work for Six L's Packing Company. In fact, Taco Bell accounts for less than one percent of the 360 million pounds of tomatoes Six L's produces annually".
Its statement goes on to say, "Six L's has informed us that their farm workers earn an average of 9 dollars per hour, with some farm workers earning as much as 12 dollars per hour — more than twice the federal minimum wage". (END/Copyright IPS)
