Keeping A Watch on Farm Worker Oversight

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 05/12/2011

The US tobacco commentator, Chris Bickers, has suggested that US farmers might be burdened with another level of oversight in their management of migrant workers if a concept advanced by Reynolds American (RAI) found favor. "The new president and CEO of RAI, Daniel Delen, proposed the formation of a council to investigate farm worker conditions when he spoke at the company's annual shareholder meeting on May 6," Bickers writes in his mid-May Tobacco Farmer Newsletter. "I talked to a spokesman for the company today, and he told me the panel as proposed would include manufacturers, growers, the N.C. Labor Department, agricultural scientists, farm workers and their representatives such as the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and perhaps others." Delen was quoted as saying: "Formation of such a council, when properly constituted, might well make a significant contribution to the improvement of worker safety and living conditions on the farms". Bickers is to provide further details on the situation as they emerge through the Tobacco Farmer Newsletter blog at modtob.blogspot.com. Enditem