FLOC Leadership Training
March 27-29, 2010
Monterrey, MX
On March 27, 2010 over 30 FLOC members from all over Mexico traveled to Monterrey for an intense weekend of training and leadership development. As thousands of H2A workers were preparing to travel to North Carolina to begin the growing season, FLOC leaders gathered to learn about new changes to the H2A program, hear an update on the Reynolds Campaign and other important FLOC projects, and develop a plan for how build leadership among members and continue to build the union in North Carolina.
FLOC president Baldemar Velasquez opened the meeting with a presentation on past FLOC campaigns and the significance of the Reynolds Campaign in improving conditions in North Carolina tobacco fields. Members received training on the structure of a corporate campaign, and the importance of targeting large corporations to create change for workers at the bottom of the supply chain.
FLOC attorney Robert Willis followed with a briefing on the new H2A regulations and how it would affect workers wages and travel reimbursements. This season FLOC leaders will play an important role in training other workers both in North Carolina and in their home towns in Mexico about the new regulations.
Throughout the weekend FLOC organizers trained leaders on the details of the historic contract won with the North Carolina Growers Association and Mt. Olive Pickle Company in 2004. Workers discussed common problems faced in the workplace and how the grievance procedure established in the contract provides workers with a way to voice their complaints and find solutions without fear of losing their job. “I’ve been working in North Carolina since 1994, and during those years I’ve seen a lot of mistreatment of workers,” commented one member. “Then FLOC arrived, and we came together with the union…now we are treated much better. For me, things have changed a lot.” 
FLOC organizers and members brainstormed ways to work together throughout the season by organizing regional meetings held in the workers’ camps to educate others about the contract and the importance of supporting the union.
Members were also introduced to two new ground breaking projects that FLOC began working on at the beginning of the year. President Velasquez presented the framework for an industry wide certification program which FLOC will be working on along with several other farmworker organizations. Although in it’s early stages, members were excited about the project and its future impacts on the agriculture industry. FLOC is also working with Oxfam America and Rights and Democracy on a Human Rights Impact Assessment, which will investigate and document human rights abuses in the tobacco fields of North Carolina and help to put pressure on government agencies and tobacco corporations to take steps to better protect farmworker’s rights. Several union leaders committed to working with FLOC organizers to visit undocumented labor camps in NC throughout the summer, where the most abusive conditions are found, and talk with other workers about human rights and document their stories and experiences. Leaders were trained on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and national and international mechanisms for reporting violations of these rights.
Before the training ended on Sunday, everyone gathered for a mass to remember FLOC organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz, who was brutally murdered in the Monterrey office in 2007. Human rights lawyer Leonel Rivera Rodriguez spoke about the lack of effort on behalf of the Mexican government in brining Santiago’s murders to justice, and the importance of the case being presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights last year. FLOC leaders remembered Santiago’s passion for justice and vowed to continue the struggle in his memory.
Members left the meeting ready and excited for a new season of organizing with fellow farmworkers and pushing ahead with the Reynolds Campaign. In an interview after the meeting, FLOC leader Jose Jaime commented, “I have been coming to NC for 7 years. I realized that we have somebody that can support us …a group that will represent us, and that’s FLOC. Before we had a union, we wouldn’t have been able to find solutions to many of our problems. Now that we are part of the union we feel protected, and most importantly, informed.” “I want to invite all of my compañeros in the H2A program working in tobacco in North Carolina to join the union,” added long time union leader Leoncio. “Many workers have realized how things have improved in our work and our lives…We need other workers to join with us so that we can work toward achieving more for everyone.”