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4/7/03 Students fight for CHANGE
Members protest Mt. olive pickles at local grocery
store Leana Donofrio Members of the Coalition for a Humane and New Global Economy stood in the rain outside Tops in Kent Friday afternoon and asked shoppers not to purchase Mt. Olive pickles. "We want to tell Tops that we want those pickles off your shelves. They have blood on them," said Baldemar Valasquez, of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Valasquez and ten other protesters, most of them students, passed out pamphlets outside Tops on South Water Street about the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. and the treatment of farm workers who harvest their product. The protesters are calling for Tops to stop carrying the brand. Valasquez told the story of the death of Urbano Ramirez, a worker on a North Carolina farm who harvests cucumbers for Mt. Olive. Valasquez said Ramirez died from heat exhaustion after being denied medical treatment while working. Valasquez said workers here in the United States and around the world need to be treated fairly and given health care, a living wage and a process to file grievances. "I am proud to be an American," he said. "And what does America stand for? Freedom, liberty and justice for all people, not just for some. The workers who harvest the food you eat for lunch aren't given freedom, liberty and justice. They are being exploited." Valasquez told a small crowd of on-lookers in the Student Center plaza Friday about the fight for workers' rights, before heading to Tops to encourage the boycott.
The rally and boycott were part of a National Week of Labor Action, which will include an ongoing campaign by CHANGE to push the university to buy fair trade coffee, or coffee that is produced through cooperation between companies and farmers with the guarantee that workers will receive a living wage and fair treatment. "We are here because we believe in an alternative way of looking at life that doesn't just revolve around you, but other people," CHANGE member Nicole Poston said. "We can begin to do this by having fair trade coffee. It's better for the workers, and it is better for us because we aren't supporting oppression." Speakers at the rally brought up a number of issues, including the war in Iraq. The rally was planned to fall on the 35th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., an avid supporter of workers' rights. Not only did students tie in King's ideas on workers' rights but also his thoughts on war, specifically the Vietnam War. Nathan Ruggles, University of Akron student and member of Students Taking Action for a New Democracy, read a speech given 36 years ago by King on the Vietnam War. He replaced the words "Vietnam" and "Communism" with "Iraq" and "Terrorism." Ruggles expressed his stance against the war through King's words, "A nation that continues to spend more on military defense than socially uplifting programs is heading towards spiritual death." CHANGE member Ellen Zielinski said there is a connection between the war in Iraq and workers' rights. "The fact that we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a war with Iraq while people in this country don't make a living wage or have health care is not right," she said. The common theme among the different protesters was a call for peace and justice around the world. Valasquez said they will continue to push Tops to remove the Mt. Olive pickles from their shelves, and CHANGE member Mike Pesa said the group is forming a committee to push all stores in Kent that carry the product to pull it from the shelves. Zielinksi said a Tops corporate headquarters spokesperson said individual stores could make the decision to pull products from shelves, but a Tops manager said he is not allowed to do this. "We have had 119 Krogers from Toledo to Wheeling, West Virginia, stop selling them -- and one Wal-Mart," he said. Mt. Olive representatives said they could not comment on the protest until today. E-mail:ldonofri@kent.edu
World-renowned labor activist, folk singer appear at union rally Alaina Fahy Closing the National Week of Labor Action, Kent CHANGE held a union rally Friday night at the University Auditorium. The student organization CHANGE (Coalition for a Humane and New Global Economy) recognizes this week every year by organizing events and bringing speakers to educate students. Baldemar Velasquez, from the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, spoke at the rally, which attracted a small crowd of students, faculty and community members. Velasquez, 56, has protested with Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez. He became involved with farm labor issues at an early age, working with his family as a migrant laborer. Velasquez's mother was the founder of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. "I was a migrant farm worker in the northern states. I worked in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. I harvested everything from strawberries and peaches to cucumbers and tomatoes," Velasquez said. "The wages the workers were promised by the farmers were never actually what they were paid. The prices were always lower by a dollar or two. "When you are living in a small kitchen with eight people, you begin to think about things like freedom and democracy," Velasquez said. "You begin to wonder how you can make it work for yourself, and you grow up angry because you have no one to complain to." Velasquez said he experienced a great deal of racism in the South while he and his family were working there. "There were signs that read 'no Mexicans or dogs allowed,'" Velasquez said. "The immigrant farm workers were housed in converted chicken coops that had to be boarded up. There were black and white drinking fountains, but "we were Mexican, we never knew which one to drink out of." Velasquez said he started to want to fit in and belong to a community and to the country. But due to racism, prejudices and exploitation, he felt it would not happen in his lifetime. "Then the Civil Rights Movement began, and I started thinking that we should do something for migrant workers, but no one wanted to help," Velasquez said. "When I first met Martin Luther King Jr., he told me that 'America had to be made right for all of its people.' The exploitation of Americans is not a black white issue, it was a class issue." Velasquez said when the National Labor Relations Act was passed in the 1930s, unions were started, but nothing was done for farmers. He continues to fight for the rights of migrant farm workers as part of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. "The way to stop the exploitation is to realize that freedom and liberty is not just for the people within the boundaries of this country -- we need to globalize it. Don't tell me that you believe in justice and liberty, show me, because it is not what you say, but what you do," Velasquez said. Folk singer David Rovics performed songs at the rally that touched on many political issues. Rovics said he was not concerned about people who disagreed with his music as long as they are willing to listen. "Most people who do not like it are unfamiliar with the side or perspective I am singing about," Rovics said. Due to the nature of his songs, Rovics' life was recently threatened. "A few weeks ago in Bozman, Montana, outside of a concert, I was threatened. Other than that, I get e-mails, but I don't take them seriously," Rovics said. Rovics, like Velasquez, came to the rally to educate students about political issues. "I sing to educate people in a way that puts them in other people's shoes and makes them see another perspective," Rovics said. "I sing to inspire people to do something." E-mail: afahy@kent.edu
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