Blue Diamond Worker’s Story Part of Employee Free Choice Act Debate

by James Parks, Mar 2, 2007

Ivo Camilo was fired for trying to gain a better life for his family.

During the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act yesterday, two members of Congress cited the experience of Ivo Camilo (see video), a Blue Diamond Growers worker who was fired after 35 years for standing up and seeking a better life.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said she was voting for the bill, which passed 241–185, to level the playing field for workers like Camilo. In an emotional speech, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) described how Camilo broke down while testifying at a field hearing about how he had been fired for supporting a union. Miller’s granddaughter, Montana, who was in the room, called him later and asked why did “that man have to cry in front of all those people?”

I said, Montana, he was embarrassed to admit to other people that he couldn’t provide for his family, that he lost a job because he simply spoke up. [That’s] another constitutional right we forget sometimes. He simply spoke up and said, “I’d like to have representation at work.” And Ivo Camilo was fired along with tens of thousands of other workers who simply made that statement to their employers. [Do] [y]ou believe that’s a fair system?

In 2004, Camilo and his co-workers on the Blue Diamond Organizing Committee decided they wanted to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. They wanted to take action after watching their wages sag, their health costs rise and they fell farther and farther behind the cost of living. Says Camilo:

As workers of Blue Diamond, we have no voice in terms of policy change, no job security. We are employees at will and we have no guarantees.

Blue Diamond responded, as many employers do, by intimidating the workers—threatening to close or move the plant, telling workers they could lose their pensions and other benefits and interrogating them about their union sympathies.

Blue Diamond fired Camilo in April 2005 after he scratched his hand on a machine. His supervisor claimed he contaminated the almonds with blood from the one-eighth-inch cut on his hand. In March 2006, a year later, a judge ordered the company to re-hire Camilo and one of his co-workers.

Camilo says he feels betrayed that after giving 35 years of his life to the company, he was escorted out by security guards:

I felt bad—the way they walked me out like I was criminal—one supervisor in front and one in back.

Camilo says he believes they fired a 35-year employee to send a strong message of intimidation to the other workers. Despite being fired, Camilo says he’d do it all over again.

I learned that I believe in justice and in equality. And that as a member of this community, I matter, my family and my co-workers matter as well.

Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act will help make the process of choosing a union more fair and help workers like Camilo, Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) said during the debate.

This bill is about fairness for those who make the world turn, who provide for their families, who are good citizens that care about their communities. The Employee Free Choice Act helps to end years of discrimination against workers who simply wish to be able to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. We have a moral responsibility to stand up for these workers and ensure their fundamental rights are not trampled upon—this bill does just that. 

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Channels: Legislation & Politics, Organizing & Bargaining