Changing The System
The FLOC movement seeks to change the structure of the system that currently fosters abuse of farmworkers. The system that agricultural corporations use to procure their raw product allows responsibility to continually be passed down: Corporations claim they are only passive purchasers, growers hang on to their thinning profits by using labor contractors who operate outside of the legal system, and those at the bottom continue to suffer.
For over forty years, FLOC has fought for a system where all parties are organized and can represent their interests as equals at the table. Three-party agreements, where farmworkers can negotiate directly with their growers and the corporations at the top of the system have continually proven effective in allowing self-determination and ending industry-wide abuses.
Achieving this structural change has always been a battle of David and Golieth. Large corporations wield large amounts of economic and political power, while farmworkers are largely marginalized in American society. However, if history has shown us anything it is that those who are interested in justice not only should, but must take up struggles for justice when they seem impossible.
In the Reynolds struggle, as in past campaigns, it is encouraging to know we are not alone. As FLOC membership continues to fight for the right to organize and to change the system, there exists a broad network of people across the country who have taken up our struggle. Big corporations may be rich and powerful, but in the past the balance has been restored by a critical mass of people who truly believe in the American ideals of justice and equality. This is why organizing in your community to support farmworker organizing is so important.