It's Labor Day! Show Solidarity with Farm Workers

[Omaha Steve]

Just wanted to remind everyone about the petition delivery the Farm Labor Organizing Committee is doing today in Charlotte.

The delivery will be at a couple Kangaroo Express, the largest convenience store chain in the Southeast, from noon to 1PM Eastern today to demand their Chairman of the Board Edwin Holman visit the tobacco fields in North Carolina and see conditions first-hand.

Sample tweets are below and the email, again, in case people needed a little more background on the campaign.

FLOC will also be live tweeting from @SupportFLOC

Thanks in advance for your help.


Sample Tweets

Tell @KrooExpress Chairman Holman to support tobacco farm workers’ fight for justice. go.aflcio.org/supportworkers2 #labor #p2

.@KrooExpress: #tobacco farm workers need your support. Please answer the call to visit the fields. #1u

I support tobacco farm workers. Do you @KrooExpress? #solidarity

Petition being delivered 2 @KrooExpress today 2 call on Chairman Holman to visit NC tobacco fields. Will he listen? #1u #LaborDay

Today is #LaborDay and I am standing with tobacco farm workers. I hope @KrooExpress does too. #solidarity

.@KrooExpress, celebrate #LaborDay by standing with farm workers in NC. Visit the fields! #1u

Email from President Velasquez

From: Baldemar Velasquez, Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Subject: Kangaroo Express: Support Tobacco Farm Workers

The situation for tobacco farm workers in North Carolina is dire. A report from Oxfam released last year showed that many farm workers often live in labor camps with inadequate or non-functioning toilets and showers and other substandard conditions, suffer from illnesses resulting from nicotine poisoning and exposure to dangerous pesticides and work long hours for below poverty wages.

This Labor Day, as part of the Southern Worker Assembly taking place in Charlotte, we will deliver a message to Kangaroo Express—the largest convenience store chain in the Southeast that sells tobacco products including Reynolds American—representatives that we want Kangaroo Express COB (Chairman of the Board) Edwin Holman to visit the fields and talk to farm workers to see how urgent the situation really is.

Sign our petition to Holman here and we will deliver it in Charlotte on Labor Day: http://act.aflcio.org/c/758/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=4842

Reynolds American, the largest tobacco company in North Carolina, claims that the company has taken steps to ensure these exploitative conditions do not exist on their contract farms, but we think they can do more to guarantee that all farm workers have a safe and healthy workplace. Specifically, Reynolds should work with FLOC to develop a written agreement that guarantees freedom of association and collective bargaining to tobacco farm workers.

Farm workers have been organizing for nearly five years to get tobacco giant Reynolds American—which reaps billions in profit from each year—to help improve living and working conditions in the fields of the tobacco growers they contract with.

Last year, they began pressuring Kangaroo Express to use its power and influence to help farm workers in their fight for justice.

We’ve already seen that a small amount of pressure on Kangaroo COB Holman from working people can get results.

After dozens of delegations to stores and hundreds of emails, Kangaroo Express COB Edwin Holman called Reynolds representatives and asked them to meet with farm workers and their representatives.

Unfortunately, Holman says this is all he is willing to do. But we know he can do more.
Imagine what a first-hand account from Holman of his experience in the tobacco fields would do to support tobacco farm workers.

Join me in calling on Kangaroo Express COB Edwin Holman to take a tour of the tobacco fields in North Carolina to speak with workers. We will include your signature in our delivery event on Labor Day.

http://go.aflcio.org/supportfarmworkers

Thank you for your support.

In Solidarity,

Baldemar Velasquez
President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

[riderinthestorm]

1. K&R nt

[Zorra]

2. knr

[freshwest]

3. I'd heard about nicotine poisoning, etc. being severe enough some have to go to the ER.

It's not reported much. Thanks for bringing this here and hope that this petition will bring the owners out to the fields to see who makes their products for them. Although the GOP, and likely these same tobacco owners have fought truth in labeling always, this is a good faith effort that may cause them to reconsider the working condtions. If it doesn't, it will may draw attention in the state to the plight of the first line, or as we used to call them in other industries, the canaries in the coal mines to indicate real dangers. Good luck to them getting some help there.

[Starry Messenger]

4. k&r

[DainBramaged]

5. The Labor crew can always be depended on here.....

[Omaha Steve]

6. Kick