Grocery Action Alert: Support Detained Farmworkers in Western New York.
URGENT: UFW worker leaders in NY have been detained
In Western NY, federal immigration agents stopped a bus of farm workers from Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms. They had a list of names, including UFW worker leaders who have been organizing to unionize their workplace. Those workers were detained.
After worker leaders were detained, the bus transported the remaining workers to the worksite.
The targeting of known union supporters in this action is deeply troubling and raises questions about whether immigration enforcement is being misused to intimidate organizing workers.
Please hit the link for next steps.
ICE ARRESTS WORKERS INVOLVED IN LANDMARK LABOR RIGHTS CASE- From The Intercept
On Friday morning at around 9:30 a.m., federal agents in unmarked cars and bearing no agency insignia pulled over a bus in Albion, New York, about 35 miles west of Rochester, and took 14 people of Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms into custody. All of the detainees, who hailed from Mexico and Guatemala, were year-round employees of Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms, a family-owned business in nearby Kent, New York, which has been locked in a multiyear battle to prevent workers from unionizing.
The company is one of five agricultural businesses that, together with a state growers’ association, have tried for years to overturn or chip away at New York’s 2019 farm labor law. The law enshrined protections for the right of farmworkers — whether seasonal or year-round — to seek union representation.
Several of the workers taken into custody on Friday have been active in efforts to unionize year-round employees, including at least one who has spoken publicly in favor of joining the United Farm Workers of America, according to Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for UFW, the storied labor union…
Immigrant farmworkers are under attack.
Write to your Congressmembers today.
Use this link from UFW to take action right now and message your Congress Members to demand they protect immigrant communities, including the farm workers who are already here working so hard to put food on America's tables.
We must take care of each other.
Be safe out there.
-Errol.