Farm Union Rargets RJR

Source from:  By Kristin Collins, Staff Writer 10/29/2007

The union that took on Mount Olive Pickle Co. and organized thousands of North Carolina's migrant farmworkers has a new target: RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. This weekend, union organizers and faith leaders from around the country will gather in front of the cigarette maker's Winston-Salem headquarters to announce the beginning of a new union drive. They hope the campaign will end with the unionization of thousands of tobacco workers in North Carolina, most of them undocumented immigrants. "Conditions are shamefully bad for most farmworkers," said Virginia Nesmith, head of the National Farmworkers Ministry, based in St. Louis. Nesmith will travel to North Carolina for the Sunday rally. "This company has the power to make a difference for thousands of workers." RJ Reynolds, the maker of Camel, Kool and Pall Mall cigarettes, doesn't directly employ farmworkers. Instead, the company buys tobacco from contracted growers, who in turn employ the field hands. Company officials said they will not bargain with a union. "If migrant workers want to be represented by a union, they and their employers need to negotiate that," said David Howard, a spokesman for RJ Reynolds. Similar deals The Ohio-based Farm Labor Organizing Committee says the company can demand that farmers who sign contracts with the company use union workers. They say union membership would empower vulnerable workers to ask for better housing, medical care and working conditions. The union, known as FLOC, has negotiated similar deals with other major companies, including Campbell's Soup, Heinz and Vlasic. In 2004, the union showed its might in North Carolina, brokering a deal that forced Mount Olive Pickle Co. to raise the prices it pays for cucumbers and ask all its farms to allow union organizers in their labor camps. The agreement followed a five-year boycott of the company's pickles organized by FLOC. "The farmers don't control the system," said Baldemar Velasquez, president of FLOC. "These companies control the money, and they benefit the most from the stoop labor of these workers. We're saying, 'Hey, you need to own up to the situation that you're implicated in.' " Many farmworker advocates who will be at Sunday's rally -- including the National Council of Churches and members of the United Church of Christ -- say they have already seen the good a union can do in North Carolina. About 10,000 workers who come to the state from Mexico each year on temporary visas have worked under a union contract since 2004. Many of those workers pick cucumbers that are sold to Mount Olive, but they work in other crops as well. Exceptions noted Six tobacco workers in Granville County are among them. The men sleep three to a room in a tiny house with chipped paint and stained carpet. But many of North Carolina's tobacco workers would consider this house luxurious, with its air conditioners, telephone, big-screen TV, indoor bathroom and washing machine. FLOC organizer Evan Hughes said he has helped the men work out a conflict with their employer, and he has made sure that one man gets the free medical care he is entitled to for an on-the-job injury. These workers are the exception. Tens of thousands of farmworkers are in the state illegally, and they have no such protections. Hughes said that in his visits to non-union camps, he often finds undocumented workers living in homes with giant holes in the floor, or infested with mice and roaches. Others are packed into isolated trailers with no phones and, sometimes, without fans to cool the stifling summer air, Hughes said. He said those workers often complain they are mistreated, denied breaks or refused medical care. Some farmers, however, say the union's claims of poor conditions are overblown. They say the union, which takes a cut of worker pay, is pressuring workers into joining. "The majority of farmers treat their labor well, because that's how they get their crops in," said Keith Parrish, president of the National Tobacco Growers Association, who uses union workers at his Harnett County farm. "Looks to me like FLOC is just chasing money." Tobacco workers first Velasquez, the union president, said that going after RJ Reynolds is just the start of an effort to improve standards for all farmworkers in North Carolina. He said the union is especially concerned about tobacco workers because, in addition to the normal hardships of farm work, they are vulnerable to rashes and illness caused by the nicotine in the leaves. He said that if RJ Reynolds refuses to negotiate, FLOC will consider boycotts of the company's products, protests at shareholder meetings and actions against other companies that RJ Reynolds does business with. "We're going to do whatever it takes to get them to hear us," Velasquez said. Howard, the RJ Reynolds spokesman, said company leaders are willing to meet with church and community leaders to discuss ways to improve working conditions on farms. But he said they will not talk to the union. "RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company certainly supports safe and fair conditions for any worker in any industry," Howard said. Enditem