Almost 60 years\u00a0ago, Edward R. Murrow’s\u00a0groundbreaking TV documentary entitled the “Harvest of Shame”\u00a0highlighted for Americans the plight of farm workers. Despite many marches, boycotts, worker strikes, and labor negotiations which\u00a0produced much success and improvements in the conditions of farm labor over time,\u00a0worker injustices continue\u00a0in our state.<\/p>\n
There has been a 10-year labor dispute and current counter-lawsuits between the United Farm Workers and the Ruby Ridge Dairy outside of the Tri-Cities.<\/strong>\u00a0A Superior Court judge in the Tri-Cities will hear the case later this month. There are at least five workplace injustices that are the basis of the farm workers’ lawsuit:<\/p>\n FAN and\u00a0the Church Council of Greater Seattle\u00a0have been working with a coalition of labor and\u00a0community groups to negotiate\u00a0on an out-of-court settlement. The Ruby Ridge Dairy is one of 400 dairies in our state;\u00a0the vast majority of those are in a co-op that sells their milk\u00a0to Darigold, which\u00a0is a key corporate player in this dispute. Numerous faith leaders signed and delivered a letter<\/a><\/u>\u00a0on September\u00a013th\u00a0to\u00a0Darigold CEO Stan Ryan (brother to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan), asking for a meeting with faith leaders and calling for a settlement with the United Farm Workers.\u00a0FAN and CCGS\u00a0also met with Costco leadership a week ago to ask them to urge Darigold to do the right thing\u00a0and settle with the United Farm Workers.<\/p>\n There are two opportunities for public action next week\u00a0in Seattle to support the United Farm Workers:<\/p>\n Monday, September\u00a017\u00a0at 1:30 PM at\u00a0Seattle City Hall (4th Ave Plaza)\u00a0<\/strong>there will be a press conference that will feature a proposed resolution from\u00a0City Council calling on Darigold to meet with the United Farm Workers\u00a0and settle their dispute. The council is\u00a0scheduled to vote on this resolution later that afternoon. Please call or email your council member to encourage them to support\u00a0it – almost all of them are:<\/p>\n District 1: Lisa Herbold<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8803 Thursday, September\u00a020\u00a0at Noon at the Darigold offices (5601 6th Ave. South),\u00a0<\/strong>there will be a press conference where UFW president Arturo Rodriguez will begin a Reconciliation Fast<\/a><\/u>\u00a0calling on Darigold to meet with them. President Rodriguez is inviting all who support the workers to join him for not only this press conference on the 20th but to stand and fast with him. The fast will go for five days, through the 24th.<\/p>\n Each day, a sector of allies will be responsible for organizing individuals\u00a0to stand with the farm workers. Communities of faith and faith organizations are hosting on\u00a0Saturday and\u00a0Sunday, the 22nd and\u00a023rd<\/strong>. Each day will be broken into two-hour commitments to stand and fast. Sign-up here\u00a0<\/a><\/u><\/strong>to join.<\/p>\n We invite you and members of your faith community to join in\u00a0this Reconciliation Fast with the UFW.\u00a0<\/strong>To sign up please contact Michael Ramos<\/a><\/u>\u00a0(206) 465-6263. If you have other questions about this issue, contact Paul Benz<\/a><\/u>\u00a0(206) 390-4133.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Almost 60 years\u00a0ago, Edward R. Murrow’s\u00a0groundbreaking TV documentary entitled the “Harvest of Shame”\u00a0highlighted for Americans the plight of farm workers. Despite many marches, boycotts, worker strikes, and labor negotiations which\u00a0produced much success and improvements in the conditions of farm labor over time,\u00a0worker injustices continue\u00a0in our state. There has been a 10-year labor dispute and current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":18415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,438],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-justice","8":"category-press-release"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/FAN4-Chorizontal.png?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-4MZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18413"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18417,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18413\/revisions\/18417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Take Action<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nDistrict 2: Bruce Harrell<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8804
\nDistrict 3: Kshama Sawant<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8016
\nDistrict 4: Rob Johnson<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8808
\nDistrict 5: Debora\u00a0Juarez<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8805
\nDistrict 6: Mike O’Brien<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8800
\nDistrict 7: Sally Bagshaw<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8801
\nDistrict 8: Teresa Mosqueda<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8806
\nDistrict 9: Lorena\u00a0Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a><\/u>, 206-684-8802<\/p>\n