Gloria Gracida in San Diego: May 6 and 7, 2016

On behalf of San Quintin Farmworkers, Gloria Gracida visited San Diego on May 6 and 7, 2016. She was invited by Colectivo Tainh from San Diego City College and the group Raices sin Fronteras.

TAINH: Facebook Event

 Gloria Gracida in San Diego 

San Quintin Farmworker Struggle 

Friday, May 6 and 7, 2016

Gloria Gracida Martinez is a middle school teacher in the Valley of San Quintin in Baja California and is also a spokeswoman for the San Quintin Valley farmworkers. She is a special commissioner outside Mexico to promote the boycott against Driscoll's and to carry the message to brothers and sisters in the United States. Gloria Gracida grew up in San Quintin but her family comes from Oaxaca; she began working in the fields when she was 10 and saw all the injustices against women and children that also worked in the fields. 

Interview to Gloria Gracida

 Gloria Gracida Martinez es maestra de telesecundaria en el Valle de San Quintín en Baja California y es también portavoz de los y las jornaleras agrícolas del Valle de San Quintín y es comisionada especial fuera de México para hablar del boicot contra Driscoll´s y llevar el mensaje a los y las hermanas en Estados Unidos. Gloria creció en San Quintín pero su familia procede de Oaxaca; ella comenzó a trabajar en los campos cuando tenía 10 años y experimentó todas las injusticias que pasaban las mujeres y niños que igual que ella trabajaban en los campos agrícolas. Más información: https://www.facebook.com/pages/TAINH/263930150299810 Trabajadores agrícolas

San Diego with San Quintin Farmworkers

While in San Diego, Gloria Gracida visited San Diego City College, presented at the Centro Cultural de la Raza and leaded two actions of boycott in Cotsco Chula Vista and Wholefoods Hillcrest. 

Gloria Gracida, maestra de San Quintin difundiendo la lucha y el boicot contra las fresas y los berries de Driscoll visita a Club Tainh de San Diego City College.

Video after the presentation at Centro Cultural de la Raza

In support of the boycott, two groups entered Cotsco Chula Vista and Wholefoods Hillcrest. The managers of Cotsco expelled the group by force and called the police. Many costumers saw it and supported the boycott. The administration of Wholefoods let the boycott go ahead, but called the police after the group was outside of the store. 

Photos Boycott at Wholefoods

After midnight Saturday, Gloria, Rosa and Karen crossed the border to meet the concert of Rubén Albarrán of Cafe Tacuba. They asked him to support the farmworkers and he did so.

Video when Ruben Albarrán supports San Quintin:

Video

In national news, Democracy Now reported the boycott against Driscoll´s. An action in San Diego was included in the video report. 

 

Democracy Now

Message from San Quintin farmworkers to the United States

 

 

Message from San Quintin farmworkers to the United States

San Quintin Baja California, February 4, 2016
To: Social organizations, sisters and brothers in USA who have supportedthe struggle of San Quintínfamworkers, independent unions, scholars, activists, media workers
 

Agricultural workers in the Valley of San Quintin, which rose in strike on March 17 2015 to demand better working conditions invite you to supportour struggle once more. We ask you to mobilize from different points of the State of California from March 17 to 20, 2016, to meet with thousands of workersconducting a MEGA-MARCH from San Quintin up to the border by Tijuana Beachesneighborhood on 20 March.
 

This MEGA-March is to commemorate the first year of the start of the strike in San Quintin. To publicize that after a year from the historic work stoppage where thousands of workers left the camps and took to the streets demanding better working conditions, employers have not listened in good will to our demands and have establish measures to ensure our labor and human rights are respected in accordance with the law. On the contrary, we have beenharshly repressed by the forces from the three levels of the Government in complicity with businessmen, we were imprisoned, injured, we have suffered reprisals, mass dismissals, constant threats in the fields, increased workload for the same salary, are obligated to joincorporate unions that we have never represented us in exchange for keeping our jobs, among other labor abuses.
 

We ask your support for this day, March 17, to join our voices together with farmworkers of San Quintin, Mexico, in every corner of USA to say: BOYCOTT DRISCOLL's; to hold in all Driscoll'sWarehouses and in supermarkets such as Costco, Walmart, Whole Foods, Safeway, or any place where these products are sold.
 

BOYCOTT DRISCOLL's because it purchases most of the fruits which are harvested in this Valley (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries) and exploits just the same workers in United States such as our brothers of “FamiliasUnidas” in Washington who have called to BOYCOTT DRISCOLL's since more than two years ago.
 

Support from trade unionists and activists of USA was important in a first major victory that resulted in the legal registration of our National Democratic Independent Union of Agricultural Workers (SINDJA), therefore we ask once more your support to demand corporations such as Driscoll's, and the companies that make up the Agricultural Council of Baja California as well as from each agricultural sector to sign a collective agreement with this unique union which legally represents workers of San Quintin, Mexico.
 

United in the struggle we trust we can count on your support.
Alliance of National, State, and Municipal Organizations for Social Justice
National Democratic Independent Union of Fam Workers
For a better future and a new country!

Solidarity with San Quintin Farmworkers

Gathering of the Californias
Date: March 20th, 10 am
Place: Border Field State Park.
500 Monument Rd, San Diego, CA 92154
** We will be meeting at 10:00 AM at the parking lot**
There is a 45 min hike to reach our destination

#SanQuintín
#LasDosCalifornias
#BoycottDriscolls

The San Quintín farmworkers are still suffering retaliation, horrible treatment, and poor working conditions.
It’s time to report it!
In solidarity with San Quintin Farmworkers!!!

●    A Living Wage
●    Fair Working Conditions
●    Pesticide Regulation (“Organic”)
●    End to Sexual Abuse
●    Democratic Union

We will be meeting to support our sisters and brothers in the fight.

Directions to Border Field Park

From I-5 South take Exit 2 for Dairy Mart Rd. ▪ Go right on Dairy Mart Rd and drive on a windy road for about 4 mi. After you go over the bridge the bridge the road change names to Monument Rd. To get Google or GPS directions use “500 Monument Rd, San Diego, 92154”

More directions provided by Friendship Park.Org
http://www.friendshippark.org/#!map--directions/c1y3g

IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS PROVIDED BY UNION DEL BARRIO:
Recomendaciones para quienes vienen de fuera en particular:

1. En tiempo de lluvia el area tiende a inundar partes, por lo tanto se recomienda traer zapatos/tennis apropiados.
    
2. El area es un area altamente militarizada, se recomienda caminar en grupo, tener contactos de organizadores y personas localmente de San Diego por si la migra llegara a cuestionar a los participantes.

Solidaridad con las y los Jornaleros Agricolas 20 de Marzo 2016

Carta de San Quintín, Febrero 2016

La Alianza de Organizaciones Nacional Estatal y Municipal por la Justicia Social y el Sindicato Independiente Nacional Democrático de Jornaleros Agrícolas (SINDJA), invitan a todos los jornaleros y jornaleras de San Quintín y México, a todas las organizaciones, a todos los sindicatos democráticos de nuestro país, activistas y al público en general:

Trabajadores del campo del Valle de San Quintín anuncian mega marcha en BC

Trabajadores del campo del Valle de San Quintín
Anuncian mega marcha en BC 

4 Vientos, 16 febrero, 2016
La Alianza de Organizaciones Nacional Estatal y Municipal por la Justicia Social anunció la realización de una mega marcha de cuatro días -17 al 20 de marzo- que partirá del valle de San Quintín para llegar a Tijuana.

Ensenada, B. C., a 16 de febrero de 2016.- Ello para conmemorar el primer aniversario del movimiento que el 17 de marzo de 2015 realizaron decenas de miles de trabajadores del campo del valle de San Quintín que hoy, con el Sindicato Independiente Nacional Democrático de Jornaleros Agrícolas (SINDJA), replanteará las demandas originales que hicieron a las empresas que integran el Consejo Agrícola de Baja California. 

http://www.4vientos.net/?p=41465 

Familias Unidas Boycott Driscoll’s Tour

Familias Unidas Boycott Driscoll’s Tour 

Familias Unidas Boycott Driscoll’s Tour in Solidarity with la Alianza de San Quintin 
From March 18 to April 15, 2016

This March and April Familias Unidas por la Justicia (Families United for Justice) is organizing a month long west coast tour to strengthen the boycott of Driscoll’s berrries all over the West Coast of the United States and build connections and solidarity with other movement organizations fighting to change the food system. 

Familias Unidas por la Justicia is an independent farmworker union that has been waging a historic struggle for the last three years for just working conditions through a union contract at Sakuma bros berry farm in Burlington, Washington. They have been calling for a boycott of both Sakuma, and Driscoll’s berries (the worlds biggest berry distributor who sells Sakuma berries) until the company meets their demands. Since 2015 they have been working in solidarity with la Alianza, the farmworker union in San Quintin Mexico who are struggling for better conditions and also calling for a boycott of Driscoll’s Berries. 

Tour Schedule

Video: Support Driscoll boycott

Support Driscoll Boycott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8O6-GvR8AI

Carta pidiendo apoyo para caravana de San Quintín a Tijuana: 17 - 20 de Marzo, 2016

Carta Abierta

Alianza de Organizaciones y Sindicato de Jornaleros Agrícolas 

Para: Sindicatos democráticos, activistas, y al 

público en general en México 

Solidaridad con la Caravana 

San Quintín - Tijuana 17 - 20 de Marzo

#‎SanQuintínEnPieDeLucha‬

Carta de San Quintín para Estados Unidos

Mensaje de San Quintin para Estados Unidos

Qué vamos a hacer el 17 de Marzo del 2016?

Qué vamos a hacer el 17 de Marzo del 2016?

Dec 11, 2015, Facebook Alianza De Organizaciones por la Justicia Social

Agrícola Los Pinos, una de las más explotadoras de trabajadores tanto del campo como del empaque, NO ES JUSTO. (Video: No somos esclavos Teve Azteca, 3 minutos).  Se han enriquecido gracias a cada jornalero y jornalera, de cada niño que ha pasado por sus ranchos, de cada anciano que envejece, de cada mujer embarazada y todavía Enrique Peña Nieto premia a su empresa por ser la mayor exportadora, con buenas condiciones de trabajo. No somos esclavos, no somos delincuentes para que nos tengan encarcelados. El vergel es un campo de esclavos. En Estados Unidos hay muchos estudiantes, investigadores, organizaciones que tienen la mira en esta empresa, nos toca hablar, denunciar.

https://www.facebook.com/Alianza-De-Organizaciones-por-la-Justicia-Social-1446542918975744/

Enrique Peña Nieto premia a Los Pinos por ser la mayor exportadora
con buenas condiciones de trabajo.

 

San Quintin 2015

Movimientos: San Quintin

Slave in the Fields: A reporter goes undercover in the San Quintin Valley By Kau Sirenio Pioquinto. Americas Program, July 16, 2015

El Vergel, four in the morning. Everything is dark, cold. Men and women dressed in jackets against the chill form in two lines, waiting their turn to enter the bathroom. Even from afar, the smell of excrement penetrates the morning air. Meanwhile, at the sinks others splash cold water in their faces to banish the sleepiness that still lingers in the pre-dawn hours. They all get ready to prepare the mid-morning snack, lunch and dinners that they’ll take with them as they head out to harvest cucumbers and tomatoes.

http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/15538  

San Quintín Valley: From Labor Abuse to Labor Mobilization By Guillermo Castillo, Americas Program, July 16, 2015

The San Quintín Valley, one of Mexico’s highest producing agricultural areas with a market aimed principally at export, is also one of the places with the most abusive, unsanitary and harmful working conditions for day laborers. In this context, agricultural workers’ demonstrations last March demanding labor rights and fair working conditions were neither improvised nor gratuitous, but rather the result of on-going injustice.

http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/15532

A Harvest of Justice in San Quintin? By Bertha Rodríguez Santos, Americas Program, May 18, 2015

The farm workers of the San Quintin Valley have gotten the federal government to commit to facilitating negotiations for a wage hike, the central demand of the more than 80,000 agricultural laborers in this region of Baja California. But Lucila Hernandez, a spokesperson for the movement, warns that the agreement is still not a clear victory. Representatives of the Alliance of National, State and Municipal Organizations for Social Justice succeeded on May 14 — after negotiations with representatives from federal and state agencies that lasted more than 14 hours on end — in opening up negotiations starting June 4 to establish and formalize agreements. The central bargaining point is the wage increase to 200 pesos that is at the core of the farm workers’ movement. The wage increase is the only outstanding point of a list of 14 agreements reached between the Alliance and the government on May 14.

http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/15146

 La disputa por registro sindical

Tras las negociaciones de abril, la Alianza sufrió una ruptura; hoy existen dos proyectos sindicales, uno apoyado por PRD de la Ciudad de México, y otro, el que cuenta con la mayoría de los delegados de Alianza, apoyado por UNT, la nueva central obrera encabezada por SME y la AFL-CIO. La controversia entre ambos proyectos se describe en los enlaces que siguen:

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/15-06-2015/confirma-fidel-sanchez-su-pertenencia-al-fpr

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/09-09-2015/anuncian-alianza-de-organizaciones-visita-de-subsecretario-miranda-nava-sq

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/20-10-2015/compromiso-salarial-en-san-quintin-sigue-sin-cumplirse

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/26-10-2015/utilizaron-12-mdp-para-controlar-las-manifestaciones-en-san-quintin

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/03-11-2015/anuncian-fecha-tentativa-del-registro-del-sindicato-nacional-de-jornaleros

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/04-11-2015/disidentes-de-la-alianza-crearan-sindicato-jornalero

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/04-11-2015/jornaleros-de-san-quintin-obtienen-registro-como-sindicato

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/06-11-2015/jornaleros-de-sq-rechazan-sindicato-creado-con-mancera

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/09-11-2015/sinaijas-refuta-la-alianza-no-hay-traicion

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/10-11-2015/sindicato-jornalero-negocia-contrato-colectivo-de-trabajo

http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/11-11-2015/organizacion-sindical-la-discordia-entre-jornaleros http://www.4vientos.net/?p=40375 http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2015/11/17/politica/009n2pol http://jornadabc.mx/tijuana/16-11-2015/apoyan-en-los-angeles-creacion-de-otro-sindicato-jornalero Movimientos: San Quintin htlm

David Bacon: The Pacific Coast Farm-Worker Rebellion

The Pacific Coast Farm-Worker Rebellion

From Baja California to Washington State,
indigenous farm workers are standing up for their rights. 

 Farm workers and their supporters march to the
office of Sakuma Farms, Burlington, Washington.

David Bacon, The Nation, Aug 28, 2015 A burned-out concrete blockhouse—the former police station—squats on one side of the only divided street in Vicente Guerrero, half a mile from Baja California’s transpeninsular highway. Just across the street lies the barrio of Nuevo (New) San Juan Copala, one of the first settlements of migrant farm workers here in the San Quintín Valley, named after their hometown in Oaxaca. Behind the charred stationhouse another road leads into the desert, to a newer barrio, Lomas de San Ramón. Here, on May 9, the cops descended in force, allegedly because a group of strikers were blocking a gate at a local farm. A brutal branch of the Mexican police did more than lift the blockade, though. Shooting rubber bullets at people fleeing down the dirt streets, they stormed into homes and beat residents. By then a farm-labor strike here was already two months old. Some leaders say provocateurs threw rocks and egged on a confrontation, but the beatings undeniably set off smoldering rage in the Lomas and Copala barrios. In addition, a government official who’d agreed to negotiate had failed to show up to talk with strike leaders. 

http://www.thenation.com/article/the-pacific-coast-farm-worker-rebellion/

The Fruits of Mexico´s Cheap Labor, Aug 2015

The Fruits of Mexico´s Cheap Labor: Video on San Quintin farmworkers

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT6AvAhDx8Q

Vice News, Aug 13, 2015, 22 min. In northern Mexico, farm workers who pick produce bound for US supermarkets earn as little as $7 a day. They follow the harvest, traveling between the states of Sinaloa and Baja California as internal migrants in their own country. With daycare not an option, children join their parents on the job, sometimes working in 100-degree heat. VICE News travels to northern Mexico and heads into the fields with the laborers to see their working conditions, then meets the organizer leading the fight in the Baja town of San Quintín for better pay and conditions. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT6AvAhDx8Q

Video 6 minutos de la protesta de Marzo 2015

Salario Justo Para Jornaleros:
Video 6 minutos de la protesta de Marzo 2015 exigiendo justicia

Movimiento de jornaleros en el valle de san quintin que aun estamos. De lucha por incumplimiento. 

https://www.facebook.com/100009317786486/videos/1560885120898732/

Trabajadores agrícolas en Carolina del Norte

Trabajadores agrícolas en Carolina del Norte 

https://www.facebook.com/DjPaisaMixx/videos/755388924514516/

Video, 3 minutos- Dj PaisaMixx, 25 enero, 2015

Mis respetos pa toda esa gente trabajadora en la pisca de fruta y verdura no es nada fácil.... Eh aquí una muestra en la pisca de camote en Carolina del Norte!! Saludos pa toda mi gente hispana trabajadora!! 

https://www.facebook.com/DjPaisaMixx/videos/755388924514516/

Immokalee: a story of slavery and freedom, 2006

Immokalee: a story of slavery and freedom 

Jeff Imig, Freedocumentaries.org 

Octuber, 26, 2006- They are not from the Pacific, but these workers´ story is quite relevant. A look at the history of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, focusing on the successful Taco Bell boycott. CIW is a community-based worker organization, whose members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout the state of Florida. 

https://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/immokalee-a-story-of-slavery-and-freedom