For Cesar Chavez Day, Can Pomona College Give Peace a Chance? Si, Se puede!

It would be Cesar Chavez's 85th birthday. Every year, his holiday is an opportunity for us to reflect on his legacy. But Cesar's legacy is not just the thousands of lives he helped change, it's also values that he stood for, and reminds us of our obligation to continue to champion those values wherever they are threatened, even today. We honor Cesar's legacy every day we fight for justice for workers, when we march with them for change. That is why I will spend this Cesar Chavez Day at Pomona College, standing side by side with that college's dining hall workers.

Through organizing, strikes, and boycotts with the United Farm Workers, men and women stepped out of the shadows and into the moral reckoning of an entire nation. The fact that the food we eat was harvested with suffering, transformed how Americans think about food. The movement work of the '60s and '70s continues to resound today in fields, supermarkets, and kitchens, as well as on the tables of millions of Americans.

Farm workers made gains through bravery, courage and solidarity. Like generations of immigrant workers who came before, the farm workers laid claim to the American Dream by founding a union of their own, to secure in a contract, fair wages, safe working conditions, and respect for their very humanity. And like those previous generations of workers who organized, the farm workers' status as immigrants to this country was a vulnerability that growers used to intimidate, terrorize and divide them, just as textile mill owners had done the same to the men, women and children from Italy and Eastern Europe who they once relied on to be docile, silent and unwilling to protest.

It is terrible that in a nation composed of immigrants that employers so readily resort to immigration status as a weapon of fear and division. It is a deplorable practice that continues today. At Pomona College, in the midst of a union organizing drive by the college's dining hall workers, the college administration decided to conduct an audit of work authorization papers for campus workers. Then the college fired 16 dining hall workers. It did not matter that the workers had spent years - in some cases, decades, as part of the Pomona College community. It did not matter that these workers had served the students and faculty faithfully.

The fight for a union at Pomona's dining hall continues, and unfortunately, so does the Pomona Administration's opposition.

Since the firings, workers have joined with students and faculty to protest the administration's actions turning the cafeteria and the campus into battleground. In response, the Pomona community plans to march on Friday, as a celebration of Cesar Chavez Day, and to share a meal together, in order to recognize the dining hall workers, and to call on the College to give peace a chance, by declaring neutrality on the question of unionization. It is a fitting nod to Cesar's memory, to bring together so many people, from so many different backgrounds, to break bread together and ask for something very, very simple - freedom from fear.

Can Pomona College give peace a chance? Sí, se puede.

 

Follow María Elena Durazo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@LALabor

Comments

[Brobdingnag]

11:59 PM on 03/31/2012

"Can Pomona College give peace a chance?"

I am confused. Looking the other way at immigration laws = "peace"?

[Heather Williams]

09:24 PM on 03/31/2012

A question-- does UNITE-HERE want this contract? Otherwise, workers are being advised to prolong a drawn-out conflict over a mechanism for recognition of the union. Why not take the neutrality that's being offered, hold elections in short order, and get a union? Then, if you're serious about backing workers, get busy and help them negotiate a good contract. Ten years ago, HERE pulled their organizers and left Pomona College workers high and dry and without support prior to a critical union election. Are you going to do the same thing again?

[Noel Rodriguez]

02:28 PM on 04/02/2012

This is a UNITEHERE campaign since September of last year, Heather, which you well know because you were informed of that fact in writing months ago. The administration is not neutral and, more importantly, the trustees are not neutral. Management has waged a vicious and at times illegal anti-union campaign. The administration has never offered neutrality. They have made it clear that they intend to campaign against the union from the moment workers file for an election up until 48 hours before the election. And they want to do this after firing 22% of the dining hall staff including most of the union organizing committee, creating an environment of terror and hostility for immigrants and union supporters. You are a professor of politics. Would you call a political election democratic if the state terrorized the electorate by rounding up and jailing or exiling opposition leaders before the vote? Of course not. There will be a recognition process when the administration and trustees agree not to intervene in the workers' decision and take steps to repair the damage they have done.

[Noel Rodriguez]

02:30 PM on 04/02/2012

By the way, there never a union vote at Pomona. ten year ago, the administration staged a vote, probably illegal, in which workers were offered a false choice between the union and becoming direct employees of the College. As you know, those choices are not opposed. And forcing workers to choose between those options was an attempt to push a no vote on the Union. Today, when workers talk about why they are standing firm against administration intervention in their union vote, they talk about the vote the administration staged ten years ago. The workers, at least, have learned from the past.

[Heather Williams]

10:44 PM on 04/02/2012

Wrong, check the record. HERE pulled its two organizers off the campaign in 2000. An NLRB-supervised election held some weeks later resulted in a defeat for the union. If you believe the feds violated the law, then check the record and go after them. The neutrality that's being offered isn't workers' ideal choice, but it's decent. It keeps management from initiating conversations about unionism with workers (the MO of union-busting management consultants) and it provides for fast elections. There's no question that the firing of 16 workers was inexcusable and atrocious. I also personally believe that the Trustees' investigation of President Oxtoby that sent the law firm Sidley-Austin into the I-9 archives to look at 40 years of employment records was probably a backhand way of trying to end the union campaign. But since your lawyers and the NLRB haven't got a smoking gun on that, you're left with a set of non-optimal choices. I say if workers are strong and pro-union, they should vote. If they're courageous enough to hold a Cesar Chavez Day protest in front of the administration building demanding a union, they're ready to go. Drawing out the fight over a mechanism for union recognition leaves less energy for building a democratic organization and getting a contract campaign in order. That's paramount, and you know that as a union organizer

[Viper1st]

12:44 PM on 03/31/2012

17 Cafeteria Workers terminated at Pomona College ~ For being illegals.

> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/us/after-workers-are-fired-an-immigration-debate-roils-california-campus.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

A Federal Felony to employ illegal(s) in the USA, since November 6, 1986, Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). U.S. Federal Immigration Law for the last 25yrs - 4 months - 3 weeks & 5 days.

U.S.C. 8 § 1324a : US Code - Section 1324A: Unlawful employment of aliens

> http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/8/12/II/VIII/1324a