GREENSBORO (North Carolina) NEWS-RECORD

October 29, 2007

Farm workers seek better conditions
Marchers said Sunday that the state’s migrant laborers deserve more pay, job security and safety.

By Taft Wireback
Staff Writer

WINSTON-SALEM — About 300 protesters marched through the empty streets of downtown here Sunday afternoon to urge that the tobacco industry improve working conditions for its farm laborers.

Many of the people who marched around the headquarters of Reynolds American were visitors from Latin American countries who are in this country on work visas.

But there also were significant numbers of people from groups such as the United Mine Workers' union and the N.C. Council of Churches marching to show support for improving conditions for the laborers.

The hourlong march was coordinated by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee of the AFL-CIO, which played a key role in a successful effort to persuade North Carolina-based Mount Olive Pickle Company to pay more for cucumbers.

"This is an industrywide problem," said Eric Jonas, a Farm Labor official based in Greensboro. "Cutting tobacco is dangerous work."

No similar march is being planned for Lorillard Tobacco Co., which is headquartered in Greensboro, Jonas said.

Reynolds American was targeted for the march after its CEO, Susan Ivey, declined to meet with representatives of the farm workers group.

A Reynolds spokesman told The Associated Press the company won't bargain with the union.

"Since Edward R. Murrow chronicled part of his 'Harvest of Shame,' in 1960, little has changed for the farm workers that cut the raw tobacco for your products in North Carolina," labor leader Baldemar Velasquez said in a recent letter to Ivey. "Indentured servitude, subminimum wages, corrupt crew leaders, extreme poverty, bootleg labor camps, heat stroke deaths, and the list can go on and on."

Mexican farm worker Jose Ramos, a visa holder who lives in Reidsville, said he found substandard conditions at farms in this area.

"The standards in tobacco should be better," he said through Jonas, who acted as interpreter. "More pay, more job security, more safety."

The middle-aged Ramos said he holds a temporary work visa that allows him to stay in this country.

Because many of the workers also are visa holders who speak little or no English, march organizers spoke through bullhorns in both Spanish and English.

Marchers carried signs and banners in both languages, as well. One sign in English read, "We picked your tobacco in 100-degree heat this summer ... Now can we talk?"

Other marchers carried flags that read, "Hasta la victoria" or "Until the victory."

The U.S. Department of Labor says that nationwide 53 percent of farm workers are in this country without legal authorization, a quarter are citizens of the United States and 21 percent are legal permanent residents. Estimates rank North Carolina sixth nationally in the number of migrant farm workers, a work force of roughly 150,000, including dependents.

Farm Labor Committee officials said they recognize that Reynolds American has no direct control over conditions on farms that employ the workers.

But as a major purchaser of tobacco, the company has tremendous power to establish industry standards for the producers that sell it the raw material used to make cigarettes, Jonas said.