In this second of a two part series, we conclude an interview with Gerardo Reyes of the Coalition of Imokalee Workers. Gerarado discusses cases of slavery in the United States, the need to change our mentality, the campaign to improve the rights of agricultural laborers, and the potential linkages between the worker’s rights movement and the local food movement.
Visit the website of the Coalition of Imokalee Workers at http://www.ciw-online.org/
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One response to “Episode #64: The Coalition of Imokalee Workers (Part II)”
Dude, thanks for this interview. You maintained a strong focus on letting Reyes do most of the talking, and on showcasing this valuable people’s history. It was however painful by the end to see that this CIW movement isn’t really going anywhere. They’re fighting over trailer trash land and pennies. They are like old steel workers trying to win concessions from Carnegie to have a more bearable form of… wage slavery.
The aim should be to grow all their own food, own all their own land, start all their own businesses, and kick their former employers to the curb, because the business model of monocropped out-of-season fruit and veggie production for export is an invitation to slavery, and there’s no way to make it pay in the long-term economy. It would have been good to alert Reyes to Common Work, Mondragon, Willie Smits, and others who have raised money for land, and redesigned local economies to support themselves from agricultural and small-production surplusses. Slow Money to the max.
A good video to see in this dynamic is the old CBS special “Harvest of Shame” from 1960. It follows mostly black migrant workers undergoing the treatment that Reyes now describes for Latinos. And these black workers never gained anything through organizing — they just dispersed to cities and a different flavor of poverty and wlefare. The fate of the Latino workers could be much different if they follow Mondragon, Smits, et al.