Strawberry pickers (Photo Creative Commons)

The House Judiciary Committee heard controversial testimony from political comedian Stephen Colbert about undocumented laborers in the agricultural sector on September 24, touching on the issues of immigration, labor laws and the economy.

Colbert has been working with the “Take Our Jobs” campaign organized by United Farm Workers. Neon Tommy sat down with Giev Kashkooli, National Political Legislative Director for the farm workers union, to get the behind the scenes story on Colbert, immigration and labor reform bills currently in Committee in Congress:

Mary Slosson: Let’s talk about the upcoming November elections, both here in California and nationwide. What is UFW doing, and what are your policy priorities?

Giev Kashkooli: Broadly, in terms of the elections this November, our number one priority is re-electing Jerry Brown as governor. No person in the country did more as governor for farm workers than Governor Brown. From 1974 to 1982 he signed many of the first and most important laws for farm workers: the first law guaranteeing and protecting farm workers rights to join a union (farm workers had been excluded from that nationally and still are in 14 states); the first law including farm workers in unemployment insurance; the inclusion of farm workers in workers compensation.  So, a series of firsts when he was Governor at the time.  We’re hopeful that he’ll be able to take farm workers into the twenty-first century as a governor this year.  That’s by far the number one priority.

The second is to continue to support elected officials, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, who have fought for immigration reform and have made that a priority.  So, in California that’s Senator Barbara Boxer, in Colorado it’s Senator Michael Bennet, in Nevada it’s Senator Harry Reid.  Those are some of the elected officials around the country we’re trying to re-elect.

MS: On the national level, I know that you had Dianne Feinstein introduce one of the AgJOBS bills. And I understand that the House bill, 2414, and the Senate bill, 1038, are both stuck in committee.  It looks like the Republicans are going to take the House, possibly also the Senate, so how will that affect the status of those bills?

GK: Both those bills have bipartisan support.  In the Senate, one of the two co-sponsors is Senator Richard Lugar, who is a Republican from Indiana with the longest amount of service on the Senate side.  In the House, there are 13 House Republicans who are co-sponsors, led up by Congressman Adam Putnam, who is likely to be the next Agricultural commissioner for Florida, so he’ll be leaving the House, but he’ll be a great advocate for AgJOBS, representing the second-largest agricultural state in the country, which is Florida – an important swing state as well, politically.

So, both are bills that have had support among both Democrats and Republicans. The real problem has been that there’s been a very, very small minority, but a very militant, radical, and racist Republican minority  - not all Republicans, but some Republicans – who have refused to let any immigration bill happen, including those that have bipartisan support like AgJOBS. 
 

MS: How exactly does United Farm Workers go about supporting pieces of legislation?  Would you describe for me how you lobby, how you indicate support on behalf of your members?

GK: We do that in a variety of ways.  The first and most important is to organize our members, who are farm workers, to make sure that the legislation we’re supporting with regards to immigration reform is in fact something that will make a substantial difference in their lives.

In the case of the AgJOBS legislation, it started with a set of negotiations with agricultural employers.  Agricultural employers tried to pass guest worker legislation that would have been mostly harmful to the farm workers, and they had been unsuccessful, because the Union was very resistant to that.  UFW has been unsuccessful passing more liberal immigration laws.  So that was how the AgJOBS compromise bill came about...

This summer we launched a campaign called “Take Our Jobs.”  That came from a meeting of a group of farm workers who were tired of being blamed by that militant, racist minority for unemployment and the county’s ills when farm workers are really doing difficult, difficult work to feed the country.

It started out as a joke in that meeting, but people realized that this could be a serious idea that demonstrates how important the work that farm workers do in our society is, and we started to invite people to take our jobs.

Stephen Colbert saw it, and invited us onto his show, and we’ve found that sometimes it takes some humor to get people to talk about a really serious subject.  We’re grateful for him bringing some of his celebrity power and ability to cut at some of the deepest issues to raise the profile of what farm workers do today.

MS: Have you seen a significant increase in interest in your organization since he threw his support behind you guys?  

GK:  Yes. When our President, Arturo Rodriguez, was first on the Colbert show, we had about 5 million hits on our website in a 24-hour period.

MS: It seems like an interesting position that your union is in, in particular, to represent a lot of workers who are undocumented and don’t have the right to vote in our country.  It seems to be a difficult position from which to work, because your members can’t call their representatives and say, “I am your constituent, and I support this legislation.”  How do you work around such a difficult starting position?

GK: By definition, many of our members and many farm workers are not voters. I think that’s right.  Members of Congress tend to listen to people who are voters in their district.  So it has been very challenging.

On the other hand, the point that our members have been raising – and I think Stephen Colbert did a really great job here – is, everybody in this country benefits from the work of farm workers.  Most of us do it three times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Without the work of farm workers, people would literally not be able to eat their fruits and vegetables that they produce and harvest.

The latest part of our campaign is to raise that spotlight and remind members of Congress that their job is to solve problems for their district, and also for the nation.  This one certainly is [both types of problem].  Without farm workers’ tremendously difficult, disciplined, and also skilled work, the rest of us wouldn’t be able to eat.  

We’re very hopeful that members of Congress will be able to do their job and solve the problem.

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