Confirmation of something we guessed

Writing in the California Progress Report, Alegria De La Cruz, Legal Director of the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, talks about those farmworker demonstrations on the Westside last summer:

“What about the ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations by farmworkers marching under the ‘Fish vs. Jobs’ banner? Go talk to the laborers in the small destitute towns of the regions such as Five Points, Firebaugh, Mendota and Dos Palos. I have. If you can gain their confidence, they’ll tell you, as they’ve told me: these demonstrations were orchestrated by farm labor contractors and their employers. Workers were either strongly ‘encouraged’ to joint the demonstrations with the implication that their jobs were at stake, or were simply paid to march. This is not meant as a criticism of the marchers; on the Westside, you cannot afford to pass up a day’s wages. The system is designed that way.”

De La Cruz’s family has been fighting corporate agriculture on the Westside for three generations. You can read the whole article, “Tales of the Westside” by clicking here.

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