United Farm Workers Falls on its Face

On May 4th, the United Farm Workers (UFW) promised to march to Americans for Tax Reform's Washington, DC offices on Cinco de Mayo, where they would protest the Center for Worker Freedom's support of Fresno, California workers fighting to escape the UFW.

The union said in a press release the delegation would confront Grover Norquist, promising the ATR president would, "...find himself the subject of a confrontation at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday—Cinco de Mayo—by farm workers and their supporters for orchestrating a slick PR campaign [against the union].”

Sadly, come lunch time on May 5th only seven protestors showed up at ATR.  The "protest" included only one (claimed) farm worker, Metro Washington Labor Council President Joslyn Williams and United Farm Workers Vice President Giev Kashkooli– who was recently arrested for civil disobedience on Capitol Hill.

The crew carried signs decrying Norquist for “bullying" farm workers. But that was the extent of it. The group was never able to actually confront Norquist, instead milling about on the sidewalk and waving signs at passersby. After about thirty minutes the group left – and hardly anyone noticed.

Norquist was not the only reason the UFW travelled to Washington. That morning the DC City Council discussed how Gerawan Farming, the tree-fruit company at the center of the labor dispute, should handle UFW demands.

The City Council simply offered their opinion – a non-binding resolution without any legal force or authority.  So why would the DC City Council weigh in on a California state issue? Apparently the Council solved all its own city's problems already, and so feel free to wile away its time passing judgment on matters over which it has no jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the UFW claims to speak for the Gerawan workers, but could only muster one to come and agitate for them? Pathetic, but not surprising given that 3,000 of these workers voted to decertify the union back in 2013, and last August nearly 1,000 of them descended on the labor board offices in Visalia, California to loudly demand the votes from that election be counted.

The Center for Worker Freedom suggests the UFW consult news footage of that August demonstration, because clearly it needs pointers on how to mount a protest.