There is one more thing you can do to help guest workers

[Omaha Steve]

Please help up fight for farm workers' rights. As we've been telling you, the outgoing Bush Administration found one last way to reward its big agribusiness friends. And one last way to hurt farm workers through devastating new H2A regulations. Thousands have responded to our appeals and taken action. Now we need to ask you if you can make a donation to help us fight for these workers.

At the end of December, the Administration published last minute changes to the H-2A guest worker visa rules that regulate how and when businesses can hire foreign guest workers.

The law says employers hiring foreign guest workers must offer the jobs to domestic workers first. However, even before the recent changes, employers got around these provisions and hired foreign workers at lower wages.


"In December of 2007, I and several other co-workers were laid off because, according to the company, there was a lack of work--while we were being laid off, Tanimura & Antle was hiring guest workers. Where is the justice in that? Although there are supposedly rules that protect us, the company was doing whatever it wanted."
-- Simon San German, a tractor driver for Tanimura & Antle at the Tres Picos Ranch in Five Points, CA

In response we filed a complaint with the US Department of Labor, demanding that Tanimura & Antle be barred from the H-2A program for such blatant discrimination against local workers. Simon and several of his co-workers were eventually rehired.

Now thanks to the Bush regulations, even these flimsy rules that protect American workers like Simon are being relaxed.

Guest workers fare no better. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently reported that they are routinely cheated out of wages; forced to mortgage their futures to pay exorbitant fees to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs; held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents; forced to live in squalid conditions; and denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries. And this is the program the Bush Administration thought needed to be relaxed in favor of growers and employers.

The UFW recently filed a lawsuit to stop the H-2A regulations from going into effect. We argued that the new rules will undo worker protections, cripple the Department of Labor's oversight and enforcement powers, and make it easier for labor contractors to bypass hiring legal U.S. workers. Unfortunately, a federal judge denied our request for an emergency injunction. Now the clock is ticking and workers will soon suffer the consequences of the new Bush rules, unless Congress passes legislation to reverse these changes, and President Obama signs the bill.

Would you please donate to help us fight these horrible new regulations? Your gift of $10, $25, or even $100 will help us lobby for laws that truly reform the guest worker program and protect farm worker rights. And it will help us organize all farm workers so they can gain fair wages, reasonable benefits, and decent treatment from growers.

Thank you for your support. We appreciate everything you do.

Thank you and Si Se Puede!


Please make your donation today!


Let's all come together to help farm workers.
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