Farmworkers fight firings, harassment

The year is 2010. Yet discrimination against and exploitation of the workers who grow and harvest our food supply continues today and in its vilest forms — against immigrants and women.

When a young woman farmworker was sexually harassed and abused at a Giumarra Vineyards Corporation facility in Edison, Calif., her co-workers came to her aid and objected to her treatment.

The day after they reported the incident, the company retaliated against the woman and her supporters by firing all of them. They are all Indigenous people who traveled from Mexico to toil in these fields for their economic survival and that of their families.

The United Farm Workers union reports that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has just filed a lawsuit against Giumarra Vineyards “for violating federal law by sexually harassing a teenage female farmworker” and retaliating against farmworkers who witnessed the abuse and reported it to company officials. (ufw.org)

Giumarra Vineyards Corporations is the largest U.S. grape-growing company, with 2,500 employees. The workers pick one out of every 10 bunches of grapes in this country. Giumarra/Nature’s Partner is one of the biggest global table-grape-producing companies, distributing and marketing fruit and vegetables from all over the world.

This voracious, capitalist enterprise carries out rampant abuse of its workforce to maximize profits and quash any resistance. For several years, Giumarra workers in the U.S. have been working with the UFW to win a union contract to stop this agro-industrial giant from mistreating its employees and to protect the workers’ basic human rights.

The UFW explains: “The company has a long history of intimidating and bullying workers and violating their rights ... .” Not only did the company interfere with a union election in 2006, but the UFW says, “Two farmworkers died of heat-related causes while laboring in Giumarra’s fields.” (ufw.org)

The UFW is circulating an online petition and asks supporters to sign it and send it out as widely as possible. It defends the woman worker who charged harassment and her supportive co-workers and demands an end to sexual harassment and retaliation against workers who protest their horrific working conditions and who support the UFW. Visit ufw.org to sign on.

A delegation of women leaders will present the petition to Giumarra/Nature’s Partner and try to meet with company representatives in February.