Baldemar Velasquez: Music for the Union Soul

by Mike Hall, Jun 10, 2007

Baldemar Velasquez has a pretty important day job—president of the Farm Laborers Organizing Committee (FLOC), a position that includes testifying before Congress, such as on Friday, when he spoke about guest worker rights. But his passion for workplace justice is matched by his love of great music—and that passion takes him to stages across the nation.

The singer/songwriter and union president has performed onstage in top flight venues with Pete Seeger, Sarah Lee Guthrie (Arlo’s daughter and Woody’s granddaughter) and other well-known musicians and with farm laborers struggling to win a voice at work at benefit concerts and rallies.

This weekend, Velasquez releases his second CD at a fund raiser for FLOC and its efforts  helping North Carolina farm workers form unions. The CD, Justice Has No Borders, offers a rich musical stew of traditional and Tex-Mex music sounds and rhythms and portraits of the struggles and lives of migrant farm workers.

Velasquez and accordionist Jesse Ponce perform traditional Mexican songs and a few original pieces in this collection, which ranges from festive to mournful as it describes farm workers’ lives. The upbeat traditional song “Los Manados” describes various border crossings from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, while “Urbano’s Song,” written by Velasquez, tells the story of the death of a field worker in

Justice Has No Borders is available from the Labor Heritage Foundation.You can also go to FLOC’s Shop at the union’s website and find a link to selections from Velasquez’s first CD release, Conciones Por La Causa. The CD is out of print, but The Union Shop Online has a few copies remaining.

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