Florida Students Rally for Tobacco Workers

by James Parks, Nov 12, 2009

Students at the University of Florida (UF) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) spent last Saturday morning raising their voices for justice for tobacco workers. Chanting ”Justice now!” and holding signs that read “Hasta la Victoria” (”Onward to Victory”), dozens of students marched and rallied on UF’s Gainesville campus.

The students joined members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), the Student/Farmworker Alliance and the National Farm Worker Ministry to demand justice for tobacco farm workers in North Carolina who suffer low wages and poor working conditions at the hands of Big Tobacco.

The rally followed a UF Student Senate resolution calling for a pay increase and better treatment of Immokalee farm workers, who pick the tomatoes used by Aramark, UF’s food provider. “Somebody’s got to fight for social justice,” said UF junior Justin Wooten.

The students and activists wanted to send a message to Susan Ivey, CEO of Reynolds American, the parent of R.J. Reynolds, the nation’s second-largest tobacco company. Ivey has refused to meet with FLOC members to discuss their working conditions.  A University of Florida alumna, Ivey is a member of the school’s foundation board, which was meeting on campus last weekend. Ivey did not attend the meeting, but the students handed out informational fliers to members of the board, including university President Bernie Machen, who told them he would make sure Ivey got a flier.

Although Reynolds does not directly employ the farm workers on its contract farms, Reynolds sets the terms with its contract growers and profits from the farm workers’ labor. As a dominant player in the Big Tobacco game, Reynolds American wields significant industry clout and can improve working conditions in the fields, but it has not developed the political will to bring about change, according to FLOC.

“R.J. Reynolds has a corporate responsibility to monitor what happens in the fields,” Roberta Perry, a National Farm Worker Ministry community organizer, told the University of Florida Alligator newspaper:

What we’re asking for is a conversation between R.J. Reynolds and the farm workers.

The nation’s tobacco farm workers live in poverty, and many suffer from nicotine poisoning and exposure to deadly pesticides and harsh conditions in the fields. They have few enforceable human rights protections.

Says FLOC President Baldemar Velásquez:

The fact that farm workers still live in extreme poverty and are vulnerable to many work-related illnesses is not only a tragedy but a moral disgrace hidden from the eyes of most Americans. FLOC will campaign until Reynolds Tobacco commits to joining us in addressing this national shame.

Last year, Velásquez spent a week working as a field laborer at a North Carolina farm to see firsthand the conditions of tobacco workers. In “A Week in the Tobacco Fields” on the AFL-CIO website, Velásquez used excerpts of his daily diary to relate his experiences and emotions working with the men in the hot fields. Read the entire column here.

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