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FLOC farmworkers, supporters meet and
rally for “Rights and Justice”
Toledo, Oct. 3, 2009: Tobacco harvesters coming from
North Carolina joined tomato and
pickle pickers from Northwest Ohio
to chart the course for the future of their union—the Farm
Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which represents over
12,000 farmworkers.
Baldemar Velásquez,
leader of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO for over
forty years, presided over FLOC’s 11th
triennial convention—the last one was held in September of 2006—wherein
over 400 delegates attended. |
Attorney Jack Gallon, FLOC’s Baldemar Velásquez and Wendy Avina,
Toledo City Councilman Steve Steel, Keith Wilkowski (candidate for
Toledo Mayor), and Adam Martínez (candidate for Toledo City Council)
at FLOC Rally, Oct. 3, 2009. |
The theme of the convention in 2009 was “Organize the South”
and “convince R.J. Reynolds” to take responsibility
for the oppressive conditions in which
North Carolina tobacco farmworkers are subjected. FLOC is
mobilizing its forces, which includes “rights advocates and
sympathetic consumers throughout the nation, to achieve justice
and equity.”
FLOC also stressed the importance of immigration reform,
addressing the plight of an estimated 12 million undocumented
immigrants living in the United States.
A major local issue addressed at the convention was FLOC’s
efforts to build alliances with local police and sheriff’s
departments, to counter pressure on them to duplicate the work
of immigration and the border patrol, which would further strain
city and county budgets.
Fred Azcarate, of the AFL-CIO, represented newly elected
president Richard Trumka
and delivered a message of solidarity and support from Trumka.
The convention began at 9:00 a.m., Oct. 3, at Toledo’s SeaGate
Centre and was followed with a march and rally for immigrant
rights at 4:00-5:00 p.m. The march began at SeaGate Centre and
terminated with the rally on the south side of the
Lucas County Courthouse.
The Reverend Nelson Johnson, Pastor of the Beloved
Community Center in Greensboro,
N.C. and national chair of
Interfaith Worker Justice, spoke at the evening
banquet on the witness-visit of the Southern Faith and Labor
Alliance to the tobacco fields.
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