Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Encyclopedia
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...

, is a labor union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 representing migrant farm workers in the Midwestern United States
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....

 and North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

.

History

FLOC was founded in Toledo, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...

, in 1967 by Baldemar Velasquez
Baldemar Velasquez
Baldemar Velásquez is an American labor union activist. He co-founded and is president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO...

. A migrant worker who had worked in the fields since he was six years old, Velasquez led his first strike at the age of 12. By the time he was 20 years old and a college student, Velasquez had already faced numerous beatings and arrests. But in 1967, with the help of his father and others, Velasquez organized FLOC among migrant field workers picking tomatoes in Ohio.

FLOC's initial organizing strategy was to focus on workers, as most unions did. FLOC organizers followed migrant workers year-round, moving south to Texas and Florida every winter to build an organizing base. By 1977, however, FLOC had only 700 members.

Campbell's Soup boycott

In 1978, Velasquez decided to adopt a new organizing strategy. The union believed that Ohio tomato growers would be unable to recruit enough workers to see them through a long strike. So that year 2,000 FLOC members walked off their jobs in Ohio. While some growers were willing to negotiate, big canners such as the Campbell Soup Company
Campbell Soup Company
Campbell Soup Company , also known as Campbell's, is an American producer of canned soups and related products. Campbell's products are sold in 120 countries around the world. It is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey...

 were unwilling to pay the higher prices which would accompany a unionized workforce. FLOC initiated a boycott of Campbell's. Six years later, not much had changed even though FLOC had conducted a well-publicized 560-mile march from Toledo to Campbell Soup headquarters in Camden, New Jersey
Camden, New Jersey
The city of Camden is the county seat of Camden County, New Jersey. It is located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 77,344...

, in 1983. Even the support of the National Council of Churches
National Council of Churches
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA is an ecumenical partnership of 37 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member denominations, churches, conventions, and archdioceses include Mainline Protestant, Orthodox, African American, Evangelical, and historic peace...

 and a group of Catholic bishops in Ohio failed to sway the company.

In 1984, FLOC asked labor organizer and consultant Ray Rogers
Ray Rogers (labor activist)
Ray Rogers is an American labor rights activist, labor union strategist and organizer as well as a major figure of prominence in the American labor and human rights movement...

 for help. Rogers developed a corporate campaign
Comprehensive campaign
A comprehensive campaign is labor union organizing or a collective bargaining campaign with a heavy focus on research, the use of community coalition-building, publicity and public pressure, political and regulatory pressure, and economic and legal pressure in addition to traditional organizing...

 strategy which included a resolution
Shareholder resolution
With respect to public companies in the United States, Shareholder resolutions are proposals submitted by shareholders for a vote at the company's annual meeting. Typically, resolutions are opposed by the corporation's management, hence the insistence for a vote...

 and well-publicized demonstration at a Campbell Soup shareholder meeting. " 'You had these little nuns get up at stockholders' meetings saying I have one share and you're a dirty so and so,' says John Dunlop
John Thomas Dunlop
John Thomas Dunlop was a U.S. administrator and labor scholar.He was the Secretary of Labor between 1975 and 1976. He was also Director of the U.S. Cost of Living Council from 1973–1974, Chairman of the U.S.Commission on the Future of Worker/Management Relations from 1993–1995 and arbitrator and...

, secretary of labor in the Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...

 administration, who was involved in the FLOC battle." The company's public image began to suffer. FLOC then targeted three members of Campbell's board of directors for economic pressure. FLOC also picketed Philadelphia National Bank
CoreStates
CoreStates Financial Corporation was a United States bank holding company in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area.The bank, previously known as PNB , was renamed in the mid-1980s after a series of mergers...

, one of Campbell's major creditors. Shortly thereafter, depositors threatened to pull $500,000 out of the bank.
In 1985, Campbell's agreed to establish a commission to implement an anti-poverty program among its workers. Chaired by Dunlop, the commission began acting as a labor relations board. In the fall of 1985, Campbell's officials agreed to negotiate with FLOC. In February 1986, FLOC, the growers and Campbell's announced a collective bargaining agreement which recognized FLOC as the workers' representative and provided for wage increases, grievance
Grievance
A grievance is a wrong or hardship suffered, which is the grounds of a complaint.-History and politics:A grievance may arise from injustice or tyranny, and be cause for rebellion or revolution....

 resolution, health insurance
Health insurance
Health insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care expenses among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is...

, and committees to study pesticide safety, housing, health care, and day care issues. Campbell's agreed to purchase a fixed portion of growers' crops, a guarantee that allowed growers to increase wages without fear that Campbell's would take its business elsewhere. Shortly thereafter, FLOC reached deals with Vlasic
Pinnacle Foods
Pinnacle Foods Group LLC is a leading packaged foods company headquartered in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, owned by The Blackstone Group. Pinnacle Foods is a key player in the shelf stable and frozen food categories and their products can be found in more than 85% of American households.The company...

, Heinz
H. J. Heinz Company
The H. J. Heinz Company , commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is an American food company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Perhaps best known for its ketchup, the H.J...

, Green Bay Foods (now part of Dean Foods
Dean Foods
Dean Foods is an American food and beverage company with two operating divisions: Fresh Dairy Direct and WhiteWave-Morningstar. The company maintains plants and distributors in the United States and the United Kingdom. Dean Foods products are sold throughout the USA.-History:In 1925, Samuel E...

), Aunt Jane's (now part of Dean Foods) and Dean Foods. Within a year, FLOC had also signed pacts with 23 of the largest cucumber growers in Ohio and Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 as well.

Continuing pressure

FLOC continued to address issues related to its collective bargaining agreement in the late 1980s. Midwestern tomato farmers began complaining that the Campbell's Soup pact was not adequate. Campbell's purchased only a portion of their product, but the higher costs of wages and benefits affected their entire crop. Thus, Midwestern growers argued that they could no longer compete with cheap Mexican-grown products. Velasquez contacted Mexican farm worker unions, then in the midst of their own collective bargaining negotiations. Velasquez pressured the Mexican unions to demand significantly higher wages. The strategy was successful: The higher Mexican wages and benefits closed the price differential, and Midwestern growers no longer threatened to break their pact with FLOC.

FLOC also fought back against subtle state-sponsored pressure. The union successfully sued the Ohio Highway Patrol (OHP) in September 1996 for stopping Hispanic migrant workers without justification and, in some cases, confiscating green cards. In December 1997, a federal district court judge issued a preliminary injunction restricting the OHP from questioning motorists about immigration status and seizing immigration documents.

FLOC also began to expand its organizing efforts. The union sought to protect its gains in the cucumber fields by organizing migrant workers in the nation's second-largest cucumber-growing region—North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

.

Mt. Olive Pickle boycott

FLOC began organizing cucumber pickers and pickle processing workers in North Carolina in the early 1990s. The union's efforts had made little headway by the mid-1990s, however. In October 1998, FLOC announced a boycott of Mount Olive Pickle Company
Mount Olive Pickle Company
The Mount Olive Pickle Company is an American food processing company located in Mount Olive, North Carolina. The company's primary product is pickled cucumbers, but it is also a large supplier of mixed pickle, relish and other pickled products....

, the major pickle processor in the state. The union targeted the pickle processor because it correctly believed that growers would not agree to raise wages unless Mount Olive agreed to pay more for cucumbers. The organizing campaign was a difficult one. Four FLOC organizers were arrested on August 12, 1998 after visiting workers at a tobacco farm in Nash County, North Carolina
Nash County, North Carolina
Nash County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is part of the Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of 2000, the population was 87,420. Its county seat is Nashville.- History :...

. A local judge threw out the charges, saying the organizers had broken no laws.

The union's five-year boycott of Mount Olive Pickle was ultimately successful. A highlight of the organizing drive was a four-day, 70-mile march from Mount Olive, North Carolina
Mount Olive, North Carolina
This article is about the town in Wayne County, North Carolina. For the unincorporated community in Stokes County see Mount Olive, Stokes County, North Carolina....

, to Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...

. On September 16, 2004, FLOC signed a collective bargaining agreement with Mount Olive and the growers. More than 6,000 of the state's 10,000 guest workers joined FLOC, boosting the union's membership to more than 23,000. The Association covered a number of cash crops, such as Christmas trees and tobacco, in addition to cucumbers.

The Mount Olive agreement marked the first time an American labor union represented guest workers. FLOC quickly established a program to bring guest workers into the United States under the H-2A temporary guest worker visa program.

FLOC kept the pressure going in North Carolina even after the contract was ratified. In 2001, working with the United Farm Workers
United Farm Workers
The United Farm Workers of America is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association led by César Chávez...

, FLOC had sued the United States Department of Labor
United States Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor is a Cabinet department of the United States government responsible for occupational safety, wage and hour standards, unemployment insurance benefits, re-employment services, and some economic statistics. Many U.S. states also have such departments. The...

 for failing to force cucumber growers to raise wages for more than 30,000 guest workers. In 2005, the union won its lawsuit. Employers were forced to pay $1.4 million lawsuit to North Carolina workers who had deductions illegally taken from their pay.

A federal district court judge ruled that growers belonging to the North Carolina Growers Association had to pay guest workers' visa and transportation fees. The ruling saved guest workers nearly $2 million a year.

FLOC announced a second major organizing drive throughout the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...

 at its triennial convention in September 2006.

Cruz assassination in Mexico

On April 10, 2007, FLOC organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz was found bound and beaten to death in the group's office in Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...

, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. FLOC had opened an office next to the U.S. consulate in the city in 2005 to help guest workers process their visas and to organize these incoming guest workers into the union. However, when Mexican police announced that a suspect had been arrested in Cruz's death, they stated "he died for failing to deliver on a shady $4,500 promise to provide visas for the friends of his alleged killer". The $4,500 was to arrange for documents for "other people so they could go to the United States to work...". The group's Monterrey offices had been broken into a several times in the past year, and union staff members had received a number of threats. Cruz, who was 29 years old, had supervised the Monterrey office for less than a month. The Nuevo León
Nuevo León
Nuevo León It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S...

 state police said Cruz's murder was not related to trafficking in illegal narcotics, but rather due to "a fight between unions" or "an internal fight" within FLOC. FLOC vigorously disputed the findings. FLOC officials claimed that organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

 figures had murdered Cruz in retaliation for FLOC's efforts to resolve grievances concerning abuses in the guest worker recruiting system (which FLOC says are dominated by criminal syndicates). FLOC petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States .Along with the...

 for protective measures. The Commission immediately granted the petition, which requires that the Mexican government provide FLOC members and staff with adequate law enforcement and security while in Mexico.

Two months after Cruz' death, the Mexican government agreed to require local police officers to sign in daily at FLOC's Monterrey office and agreed to install security cameras throughout the building where FLOC's offices are located. FLOC President Velasquez and Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 Marcy Kaptur
Marcy Kaptur
Marcia Carolyn "Marcy" Kaptur is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1983. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, anchored by the city of Toledo, includes all of Ottawa and Erie counties, and part of Lucas and Lorain counties.Serving her fourteenth term in the House of...

 (D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

-OH
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

) met with officials from office of the Attorney General of Mexico to resolve problems with the implementation of the new security measures. Although the IACHR has been pressuring the Mexican government since early May to install the cameras, the Nuevo León and federal government disagree over who will pay for them. The police officer visits to the union offices also have been less frequent than promised.

R.J. Reynolds Campaign

In 2006, the North Carolina branch of FLOC began its new campaign against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company , based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1875, is the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S. . RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc...

. FLOC president Baldemar Velazquez spoke of the tragic and preventable deaths of at least four migrant tobacco workers in the summer of 2006 in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

. The aim of the new campaign was to put pressure on Big Tobacco
Big Tobacco
Big Tobacco is a pejorative term often applied to the tobacco industry in general, or more particularly to the "big three" tobacco corporations in the United States: Philip Morris , Reynolds American and Lorillard...

 executives to change its abusive procurement system.

Tobacco corporations have control throughout the levels of tobacco procurement. Due to their monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

, they control the prices they pay growers, and therefore the wages paid to field workers. There are deceptive layers of subcontractors throughout this system, designed to avoid responsibility for what happens down the chain. Nevertheless, tobacco corporations have the power to change this system and directly improve the lives of the workers who harvest their product.

FLOC seeks to change the abusive structure of the procurement system through a multi-party agreement between the corporation, the growers and the farmworkers. Thus far, Reynolds CEO Susan Ivey has refused to meet with FLOC representatives. FLOC continues to put pressure on Reynolds to meet and attended a May 2008 shareholder meeting to raise the issue and to support a shareholder resolution calling for the company to establish a human rights protocol throughout its supply chain. The resolution had the support of the shareholder advisory service ISS and received a significant 13% of the vote.

Structure

FLOC is governed by its membership. The membership elects delegates, who meet every four years (effective Convention 2009). FLOC held its first membership meeting—called a "constitutional convention"—in 1979. Members set dues, approve policy statements and broad programmatic guidance, and elect officers. Currently, FLOC members pay 2.5% of their base wages as dues.

Between conventions, FLOC is governed by a Board of Directors. The board includes the three officers—the international president, international vice president, and international secretary-treasurer—and four at-large board members. All board members are elected for four-year terms. At its 11th Constitutional Convention in 2009, delegates elected the following individuals as board members:
  • Baldemar Velásquez, president
  • Maria Garcia, vice president
  • Beatriz Maya, secretary-treasurer
  • Diego Reyes, member at large
  • Angelita Morrisroe, member at large
  • Belia Garrobo, member at large
  • Christiana Velasquez, member at large


Between executive board meetings, FLOC's day to day operations are governed by the three officers, led by the president.

FLOC has a number of programs which it has implemented to improve the lives of its members. Since 1971, FLOC has offered educational programs, established food and fuel cooperatives, and run legal clinics for both members and non-members.

After it achieved its contract with Campbell's Soup, FLOC sought a charter from the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...

. The AFL-CIO chartered initially chartered FLOC as a directly affiliated local union
Directly Affiliated Local Union
A Directly Affiliated Local Union is a U.S. labor union that belongs to the AFL-CIO but is not a national union and is not entitled to the same rights and privileges within the Federation as national affiliates.Legally, the AFL-CIO is the parent union of the DALU, and the AFL-CIO is responsible...

. However, in February 2006, FLOC changed its affiliation with the AFL-CIO and became a fully chartered international union.

While FLOC has a good working relationship with the United Farm Workers (UFW), neither union has sought merger with the other. In 1993, FLOC president Velasquez expressed doubt that his members would approve a merger.

External links

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