Source: NH LABOR NEWS, 9/26/19

In the last week, a delegation of farm workers and community supporters delivered written notices to employers calling for an end to abuses and corruption in their workplace. They are demanding that the farms where they work in Eastern NC take responsibility for the wage theft, abuse, and intimidation, they have suffered at the hands of corrupt farm labor contractor (FLC) Salvador Barajas of SBHLP Inc. In addition, they are asking the FLC and farm owners to recognize their right to collectively bargain for better work conditions.

Salvador Barajas, the FLC on these farms, has stolen workers’ wages and put workers’ health at risk through dilapidated housing and forcing them to purchase unsanitary and inhumane meals at illegal prices. “We want no problems. We just want to get paid and keep working. The union can help us achieve it,” said one of the workers petitioning the employers who preferred to remain anonymous.

The farmworkers seeking union recognition are members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), a union that has been calling on the tobacco industry for over a decade to fix their supply chain by guaranteeing basic human rights. Wealthy corporations such as Reynolds American, Inc., Alliance One, and Universal Leaf, have refused to take action and instead have opted for public relations efforts to avoid addressing the root causes of inequities in their supply chain. 

“After 12 years of calling for real action, all these companies have done is set up phony audits and a complaint hotline run by GAP Connections, an industry front group they all created together. We are calling on these companies to put their money where their mouth is and improve pricing and purchasing practices so that growers and workers can have safe, fair, and stable jobs,” said FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez. “Companies can claim they require higher standards, but if they pay growers who use these FLCs the same price for tobacco as the good growers who hire directly and provide good conditions, their commitments are worthless and this is the inevitable result.” 

GAP Connections is an organization formed and controlled exclusively by tobacco manufacturers that was founded to help audit growers for compliance with quality and labor issues. Unfortunately, the organization has shown more interest in covering up abuses and serving as a public relations tool than identifying and rectifying abuses in the farms they claim to audit. 

Growers frequently outsource the recruitment and management of farm workers to FLCs because the costs of hiring workers directly, paying good wages, maintaining proper housing, and ensuring compliance with laws and benefits in a union contract cost money. Delegating that out to a contractor saves money; however, the primary method that FLCs use to save money is by stealing from workers and not complying with the law, using threats and intimidation of workers brought in from Mexico to keep workers quiet. FLOC has been informing the tobacco industry and general public about these types of abuses by H2ALCs for years, but continue to meet with inaction. 

FLOC members are ratcheting up their public campaign encouraging a boycott of Reynolds’ e-cigarette, VUSE, to build support for the workers who expect retaliation in the coming days. For more information, follow the union on Facebook at: Farm Labor Organizing Committee – FLOC or go to www.floc.com.