¡Si, Se Puede! The United Farm Workers (https://ufw.org)

Abstract

The vision statement of the United Farm Workers (UFW) embodies the union’s long history of connecting workers’ rights with the quality and safety of the food that comes from the fields they tend and harvest. Labor, and especially farm labor, is too often invisible. Although there is increasing public attention to the food we buy and eat and elevated consciousness with regards to freshness and purity, there remain significant blind spots when it comes to consumer understanding of how fresh produce makes its way to our homes and tables. The produce planted, cultivated, and harvested in the agricultural fields of the United States relies on farm workers. Martin (2012) estimated there were 2.4 million hired farm workers in the United States in 2012. Farm worker median annual pay in 2019 was $25,840 or $12.42 per hour (Hernandez & Gabbard, 2018). Farm workers enjoy very few protections in terms of workplace safety at the state and federal level (Martin, 2020). In language associated with the current pandemic, agricultural labor is acknowledged as a critical aspect of the economy by the Department of Homeland Security and falls in the category of essential critical infrastructure workers (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2020; Jordan, 2020). This classification makes the recognition of the rights of farm workers to safe work environments with fair pay and compensation all the more important. The United Farm Workers of America have been waging this fight for more than half a century. The UFW today continues to organize for the rights of farm workers to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. The union’s long and successful history of organizing and advocacy connects directly with education and research that inform policy development to meet the union’s mission of a safe and just food supply. https://doi.org/10.1080/10496505.2021.1901182