TO THE EDITOR:
In honor of National Farmworker Awareness Week (NFAW), I feel compelled to respond to the N.C. Farm Bureau’s press release detailing the results of their statewide survey of the N.C. agriculture industry.
The speakers emphasize the importance of a workable “guest-worker” program for North Carolina’s farmers.
Stressing the fact that agriculture is the largest industry in our state, one speaker states that “our farmers deserve a voice in Raleigh and in Washington.”
Farmworkers, too, deserve a voice in immigration reform that will impact their lives. Any planned “guest-worker” program must be designed to uphold the human rights of the men and women who work in North Carolina’s fields.
The N.C. Farm Bureau’s survey does recognize the inadequacy of our current “guest-worker” program.
Undocumented farmworkers do not have the basic legal protections or labor rights afforded to other workers.
As a result, they face low wages, harsh working conditions, lack of adequate housing and constant vulnerability to employer abuses.
Corporations like R.J. Reynolds make huge profits from the tobacco industry, yet farmworkers regularly suffer from human rights abuses, such as “green tobacco sickness,” from the lack of necessary protective gear and training.
