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Throwing
’Em a Bone
The
perennial push to gain equal rights for New York’s farm laborers
known as Farmworker Advocacy Day [Newsfront, May 1], culminated
this year when the state Senate passed two bills granting
farmworkers basic labor protections. But Richard Witt, executive
director of the Rural and Migrant Ministry, said he wants
more than token gestures—he wants the Legislature to address
the real issues.
The two new bills, sponsored by Sen. Olga Mendez (D, R-Bronx),
require farm operators to post signs notifying laborers of
their workmen’s compensation rights and to make workmen’s
compensation claim forms available to farmworkers within three
days of an on-the-job injury, but Witt was surprised these
issues were even considered.
“These
weren’t even on our radar screen,” said Witt, whose group
has been advocating for farmworkers’ rights for over a decade.
“We appreciate Senator Mendez’s efforts, but for the Senate
to pass these on the day we were out there was really avoiding
and ignoring the real injustices.”
According to Witt, the Legislature should focus its efforts
on including farmworkers in the state’s labor laws. Currently,
farm operators in New York are not required to grant their
laborers a day of rest, overtime pay, or to provide them with
disability insurance, nor are farmworkers allowed to unionize.
But, in a way, the Senate’s actions were expected, said Witt,
considering the slow pace at which the Legislature has granted
farmworkers even the most basic labor rights in the past;
after nearly a decade of lobbying, it wasn’t until 1996 that
advocates convinced state lawmakers to grant farmworkers access
to clean drinking water on the job, and access to toilets
wasn’t mandated until 1997.
“We’re
all so focused on the ongoing struggle that I don’t think
we paid much attention to the two bills,” said Witt. “If it
was their intention to try to mollify us or satisfy us through
the passage of those bills it wasn’t going to work, and it
didn’t work.”
Witt and many others are lobbying the Senate to pass an all-inclusive
farmworkers’ rights bill, also sponsored by Mendez, giving
the state’s farmworkers the same labor protections enjoyed
by the rest of the state’s workforce.
A similar bill has passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly
for the past two years, leading many advocates to bash the
Republican-controlled Senate. But Mendez said the struggle
to grant farmworkers’ equal labor protections under state
law should not be used for “partisan politics.”
“It
is a bill that is doing something that needs to be done,”
said Mendez. “The other workers do have those rights by law,
and everyone should have these equal rights under law. I’m
demanding parity for them, not special treatment.”
—Travis
Durfee
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Chris
Sheilds
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Please
Don’t Eat The Fishies
About
50 environmentalists, children and neighborhood residents
took part in the sixth annual Fishing for Justice, a day of
canoeing, catch-and-release fishing, storytelling and other
estuary-related events at Island Creek Park in Albany’s South
End on Saturday (May 10). As many people from Albany’s low
income and minority communities supplement their diets with
the fish caught from the Hudson River, a number of environmental
groups spent the day educating people about the dangers of
eating contaminated fish. The groups also launched their boat,
the Samuel Schuyler, a 23-foot motorized craft to further
similar educational efforts and to help test the Hudson for
contaminants. Schuyler was a freed slave who operated a successful
tugboat business in Albany’s South End. The Arbor Hill Environmental
Justice Corporation, the W. Haywood Burns Environmental Education
Center, Appalachian Mountain Club and the Sierra Club sponsored
the day’s events.
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Columns
& Opinions
