Justice For Farm Workers Campaign Presses Democrats To Keep Promise

[Omaha Steve]

FULL title: Justice For Farm Workers Campaign Presses Democrats To Keep Promise To Vote On NY Farm Worker Fair Labor Act

http://www.laborradio.org/node/13695

By Doug Cunningham

Jordan Wells with New York’s Justice For Farmworkers Campaign says despite promises from the Democratic leadership the state Senate has ignored the voices of farmworkers and given in to agri-business. In Albany today farmworkers, clergy and labor leaders will be rallying and lobbying in Albany to bring the Farm Worker Fair Labor Practices Act to a vote.

: “We’ll have farmworkers from around the state join with folks like Kerry Kennedy and leaders of the labor movement and people of faith in Albany to lobby for a bill that would extend to them the same rights that are already afforded other workers. Like the right to overtime pay, the right to a day of rest, the right to collective bargaining and coverage under the state’s temporary disability insurance program.”

The Farmworkers Justice Campaign says New York State Senate Majority Leader, Democrat John Sampson, promised to bring the farmworkers fair labor act to a vote but has gone back on his promise.

: “He has reneged in every possible way on that promise and bent towards the agricultural industry lobby. And the shame is that even if not every last Democrat voted for the bill, there are members of the Republican conference, the minority conference, that would vote for the bill that are supporters of this sort of basic measure of justice for farmworkers and would vote for the bill – if only the Democratic leadership would bring it to that point.”