Heartbreaking, Depressing story on UFW in LA Times

[Zomby Woof]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ufw8jan08,0,6620187.story?coll=la-home-headlines

UFW: A BROKEN CONTRACT
Farmworkers Reap Little as Union Strays From Its Roots

The movement built by Cesar Chavez has failed to expand on its early successes organizing poor rural laborers. As their plight is used to attract donations that benefit others, services for those in the fields are left to languish.

By Miriam Pawel, Times Staff Writer


Red letters flash inside the famous black eagle, symbol of the United Farm Workers: "Donate," the blinking message urges, to carry on the dreams of Cesar Chavez.

Bannered on websites and spread by e-mail, the insistent appeals resonate with a generation that grew up boycotting grapes, swept up in Chavez's populist crusade to bring dignity and higher wages to farmworkers.

Thirty-five years after Chavez riveted the nation, the strikes and fasts are just history, the organizers who packed jails and prayed over produce in supermarket aisles are gone, their righteous pleas reduced to plaintive laments.

What remains is the name, the eagle and the trademark chant of "Sí se puede" ("Yes, it can be done") — a slogan that rings hollow as UFW leaders make excuses for their failure to organize California farmworkers.

Today, a Times investigation has found, Chavez's heirs run a web of tax-exempt organizations that exploit his legacy and invoke the harsh lives of farmworkers to raise millions of dollars in public and private money.

The money does little to improve the lives of California farmworkers, who still struggle with the most basic health and housing needs and try to get by on seasonal, minimum-wage jobs.

Most of the funds go to burnish the Chavez image and expand the family business, a multimillion-dollar enterprise with an annual payroll of $12 million that includes a dozen Chavez relatives.


-snip-

[Surya Gayatri]

1. I wonder if the rot

had already set in before Chavez's death in 1993--or if the movement has been hijacked only since he died? SG

[Zomby Woof]

2. A little of both

All week long there will be a different feature showing that some of this corruption started many years ago, and much of it since he died.

It is a disgrace to Chavez's memory and legacy. The conditions of the laborers is worse than ever in many places. It isn't just the wages, it's their living conditions, the lack of water and electricity, no OT, no breaks... it's thoroughly despicable what has happened with the farm laborers.

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Yes, the conditions for casual workers

in the US are a shameful disgrace for a nation that calls itself civilized. Nothing but wage slavery by another name. I remember my shock as a child years and years ago, when I first saw the hovels of some migrant workers in my home state. The impression has never left me--even though I've travelled to much "poorer" countries since then. SG

[buddhamama]

4. sadly,

this is a "familiar" story, no? power corrupts.

[Zomby Woof]

5. When it happens to unions

It is deeply disturbing, because it sets back the labor movement 50 years. It gives ALL unions a black eye by association, and makes the gains needed even harder to obtain.

It angers me more than anything, but I can't even summon outrage when confronted by the sheer depth of sorrow I feel for the brothers and sisters in the fields.

[buddhamama]

6. a cleansing

is in order every so often.

if the history of the labor movement in this country has taught us anything it is that very lesson.

well intentioned folks they may be at the off-set, living too long separate and apart from the very folks they're supposed to represent causes one to lose sight of whom and what they're protecting/supporting/fighting for.

[newyawker99]

7. ZombyWoof

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


NYer99
DU Moderator