Farmworkers fight for rights in the tobacco fields

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.peoplesworld.org/farmworkers-fight-for-rights-in-the-tobacco-fields/

by: John Bachtell
August 4 2010

GREENSBORO, N.C. - The late summer sweltering heat in the North Carolina tobacco fields can literally kill a man. Over the past few years, nine migrant farm workers have died in fields across the state from heat stroke.



That's not all. Migrant farmworkers also suffer from the "green monster" - nicotine poisoning and exposure to deadly pesticides and herbicides.

The Rev. Carlton Eversley of Winston-Salem, N.C., was part of a religious delegation that visited a migrant camp in Winston in 2008. He told the Hattiesburg American he would never forget what he saw.

"It was mind-boggling: 125 guys in wooden barracks, seven guys in a room with no windows, no ventilation, no linen, no bed sheets, no closets, very hot, very unsanitary, swarms of gnats ... You felt like you were leaving the United States and going to some kind of Third World situation," said Eversley.

Migrant workers have been called modern day slaves, who labor long hours far from home at low pay and horrendous conditions. Because many are undocumented immigrants, they live in fear and won't speak up or protest the harsh conditions.

The farmworkers here are mainly immigrants from Mexico who go to Florida, then Ohio to pick fruits and vegetables, and then to North Carolina during tobacco season. In addition many immigrant workers are working now in the state's giant hog industry, swelling the number of Mexican American residents.

This is why the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), based in Toledo, Ohio, has mounted a campaign with religious and community allies to organize the 40,000 immigrant farmworkers. While 10,000 workers are here on the H2A guest worker program, another 30,000 are undocumented immigrants who harvest tobacco leaves and enrich billion dollar corporations.

FULL story at link.