A storm is brewing as Tropical Storm Gustav barrels into the Gulf of Mexico. Three years after Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, the people of South Mississippi are bracing themselves again by loading up on emergency supplies and tuning in to storm advisories.

But another emergency already hit Mississippi earlier this week - this time it was the force of the I.C.E., not wind and rain. On Monday, August 25, hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the Howard Industries plant in Laurel, Miss. Almost 600 workers were detained, including a dozen minors and several pregnant women. It's reported that about 186 children were not picked up from school on Monday because their parents were in detention. Hundreds of small children have been left without their mothers.

As one of the only community-based workers' rights institutions in the state of Mississippi, UUSC Economic Justice partner MPOWER is on the scene, supporting families to connect with their loved ones in detention, helping make arrangements to ensure children are cared for, and working with local organizations and churches to address the humanitarian needs.

MPOWER (Mississippi Poultry Workers for Equality and Respect), based in Morton, Miss., is focused on building the capacity of poultry-processing workers to combat abusive labor practices in the industry, with particular attention to building solidarity between Latino immigrant and African American workers. As a "worker center," MPOWER also provides labor rights education to workers in other industries all over Mississippi, and through advocacy and organizing, responds to urgent needs faced by workers as they arise. This week, the staff of MPOWER has been actively providing assistance and support to the workers and families who have been most affected by the raid.

So much uncertainty looms on the horizon, as workers and their families affected by the raid also await the impending tropical storm, the path and strength of which is, naturally, unpredictable. MPOWER reports that Mississippi workers' minds are brimming over — a swirl of memories awakened by the anniversaries of Katrina and Rita, anticipation of the equally unpredictable ICE — first Postville, now Laurel, and "where will they go next?"

Just last month, I was in Mississippi to provide technical support to MPOWER. During the course of the days that we were working together on long-term planning, developing their board of directors, and connecting with other UUSC partners, we were called to action as we learned of an arrest of a poultry worker at the Koch Foods chicken plant, just a block from the MPOWER office. The worker who was arrested was a young, single mother of a two-year-old girl. MPOWER helped to find a temporary guardian for the little girl while her mother awaits trial, but you can only imagine the ripple effect of this same trauma happening to hundreds of children.

"For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome."

Fortunately, the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA) — a partner of the Rights in Humanitarian Crises program that was supported by UUSC to work with immigrants in Mississippi to claim and defend their rights in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita — is working to provide legal representation for the detained workers. But I can't help but wonder if the workers will truly have access to the due process that is promised by this country. Will they be sufficiently informed of their legal rights? Will they be provided meaningful access to legal representation? The connections between workers' rights, civil liberties, rights in humanitarian crises, and immigration in this country are inextricable.

As we celebrate Labor Day this weekend — and as we strive every day to uphold the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and to promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations — let us remember the workers and their families in Mississippi who are weathering the storms.

After a slow, bumpy ride on a dirt road that winds up through the lush mountains outside of Guatemala City, I arrived in San Pedro Sacatepéquez. I was on my way to meet UUSC's Economic Justice partner STITCH and the members of its Labor Advisory Group -- women who are organizers, former and current maquila (or factory) workers, and members of agricultural unions from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. This group acts as the sails and rudder for STITCH's work in Central America, and they had already been holding their meeting for several days when I arrived. I was invited to attend the last part of the meeting, when the Labor Advisory Group discusses its strategy for the upcoming year.

When I stepped into the meeting room, I encountered something unexpected. To ward off the cool mountain air, a fire was chewing on some logs in a big stone fireplace. There were candles lit on the mantel, and soft, lyrical music was wafting through the wood-smoked air. Although I'd never met any of the members of the Labor Advisory Group, nor STITCH's Guatemala City staff, I instantly opened up, ready to listen.

I tossed my shoes into a pile of sneakers and sandals at the entrance and began walking around the room to see what the women were working on. The first thing I saw was a collection of flip-chart papers taped up around the room, expressions of the work the women had been doing in the days before my arrival. Each chart detailed examples of accomplishments the women had achieved in their unions as a result of their involvement with STITCH.

Over the last three years, UUSC has supported STITCH to develop a Women, Labor, and Leadership project, which has culminated in the completion of a training curriculum for women unionists in Central America. The curriculum has four modules -- Gender, Globalization, Women's Leadership, and New Directions in Unionism -- each with multiple chapters that address the unique challenges faced by women workers, that offer strategies and analyses of power, and that expand women workers' ability to address and overcome violations of their rights. STITCH used an extremely thoughtful, participatory process to develop this curriculum, continually incorporating feedback from members of the Labor Advisory Group, who field-tested modules with their fellow women union members.

The most exciting aspect of this curriculum is that it strengthens women's understanding of their rights and boosts women's confidence so much that they take on positions of leadership in their unions. In some cases, they've formed women's committees within their unions and have even ventured out to form new unions. The charts spoke volumes...

We have a deeper understanding of our rights as women in both the labor and private spheres.
We have learned how to plan and give a workshop.
In our lives, as women, we value ourselves and have more confidence.

I walked around some more and began chatting with women who were working in small groups on artistic murals that depicted their vision for future years of work with the curriculum. STITCH plans to launch union schools, which will grow out of a process in which members of the Labor Advisory Group bring what they've learned about women's rights, labor rights, and popular-education methodology back to their own unions and communities. The ripple effect will generate new possibilities for women's groups within their union structures, as well as for advocacy around women's rights provisions in the unions' collective-bargaining agreements.

Using flowers, branches, and pine needles that the group had gathered from a meditative walk through the surrounding mountains, they built an altar -- a practice rooted in Mayan tradition -- to help center their work and impart a spiritual presence to the meeting. Then, they carried out a number of participatory activities, infused with ritual and symbolism, which clearly served to build mutual support and commitment among the women to help them tackle the difficult work ahead. Many of the exercises focused on supporting the women in leaving their fears and obstacles behind and bringing positive energy into their new phase of work.

Although what I encountered was a bit unexpected, it wasn't surprising. It was right in line with the reputation that STITCH has for doing its work in an innovative, gender-focused, and participatory way. STITCH recognizes that acknowledging the spiritual aspect of working for social justice and human rights entails an understanding of our wholeness as people. As part of an interdependent web, we must bring spirit into our work in order to sustain and propel ourselves as we confront injustice. And this must all be rooted in our everyday experiences, with an approach that allows women to begin opening spaces for justice in our lives as a whole -- at home, in the workplace, and in our communities at large.

 

On November 9, UUSC's Economic Justice Program staff attended three trainings at the 2007 “Nonprofit Workout,” whose theme this year was “The Ways We Lead: Creating Adaptive, Inclusive Organizations.”

In the afternoon, Johanna and I went our separate ways to different workshops, and the session I attended was called "Constituency Leadership Development: What, Why, and How."

This workshop was facilitated by the three co-directors of the Center to Support Immigrant Organizing (CSIO), Luz Rodriguez, Ann Philbin, and Kevin Whalen. CSIO is a Boston-based organization that works with individuals, groups, organizations, and communities dedicated to organizing immigrants around the various issues that affect them. CSIO provides training, organizational support, peer networking, and other capacity-building support in immigrant communities.

At the heart of CSIO's work is the concept of "constituency leadership development." What does that mean? Well, first CSIO defines the constituents of an organization as "the people whom the organization serves, individuals who come into the organization seeking assistance and members of the community whom the organization's work impacts." This includes immigrants, but it would also include low-wage workers, people of color, women, youth, and other marginalized groups within a community.

CSIO describes its philosophy and practices of constituency leadership development in a three-pager, and it's still a work in progress, but what it boils down to is that constituency leadership development is the "process of creating opportunities for people to exercise power and offer their experience, knowledge, and skills to the work of positive community change," based on the notion that "people who are affected by injustice know best how to overcome that injustice." However, this can only come about when people have ongoing experiences of their own value and importance -- including their collective power -- in contributing to social change, shifting out of a mode of powerlessness and passivity that can result from ongoing experiences of oppression.

As participants in the workshop, we also had a range of ideas about what leadership development can look like, from constituents educating each other about their rights, to being spokespeople on their own behalf, to taking ownership of the mission of the organization. It may also mean supporting people to use the experience they've developed through living their day-to-day struggles to think systemically about how to promote social change.

In the context of working with organizations, this process of leadership development means that constituents must have access to decision-making roles, including staff and board positions, and must be fully integrated into the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the work.

The concept of constituency leadership development is particularly useful to UUSC's Economic Justice Program because workers in the informal economy and in unregulated industries are facing tremendous abuses of their human rights, but also have the opportunity to exercise leadership to change those conditions through organizing and advocacy with our partner groups. Organizations like our workers' centers partners in the United States and the Kenya National Alliance of Street Vendors and Informal Traders (KENASVIT), are already actively practicing constituency leadership development.

Still, there are many challenges to implementing the model of constituency leadership development. There's the question of power-sharing, since an organization must allow space for recognition of the existing power dynamics inherent in its leadership structures, and be prepared to change them if they don't place constituents at the center of decision-making. Equally critical is the question of fear.

Low-wage workers often confront obstacles to organizing to protect their basic rights because of the risks they face -- they could lose wages, lose their jobs, be deported, or even be the victims of violence for exercising leadership in their workplaces and communities. In addition to making organizations more accountable to communities through constituency leadership development, we must also actively organize and advocate to hold corporations and governments accountable for their legal and moral obligations to uphold workers' rights.

Today, August 9, we celebrate the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, which was established in 2004 by the United Nations to mark each year’s passing of the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. Since this day has been set aside to raise awareness of indigenous issues and to promote the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, it seems appropriate to reflect on fair trade, a system that has been developed to improve economic conditions of small-scale farmers, including indigenous farmers around the world.

You probably already know why buying fairly traded products benefits small-scale farmers. Take coffee, for example — it’s a serious business, second only to oil as the most heavily traded commodity in the world. But the small family farmers who are the primary growers of coffee have little access to the world market and are exposed to volatile world prices. Fair trade gives small-scale farmers a more adequate and stable source of income, giving them access to international buyers and ensuring they’re paid a minimum price for their products.

Fair trade systems also help ensure that working conditions improve and that human rights violations such as abusive child labor are not tolerated. What’s more, agricultural products certified by TransFair USA (the fair trade certification organization in the United States) are grown using more environmentally sustainable methods of farming.

But fair trade is complicated, and it’s not just about paying a fair price to farmers. It involves processing and certification of the products, international shipping, marketing, and distribution. While participation in a fair trade cooperative does eliminate the risk of small-scale farmers getting underpaid for their products by exploitative middlemen, the fair trade system is still about competing in the global marketplace, and presupposes that trade is an appropriate means of promoting development. So what does this mean for indigenous peoples?

The Cultural Survival Quarterly issue called “Fair Trade and Indigenous Peoples” takes an in-depth look at these complexities. It critiques fair trade for not paying enough attention to indigenous perspectives, but also presents many of the positive impacts that fair trade has had on indigenous farmers.

Although fair trade does improve financial outcomes for indigenous farmers, it doesn’t address the fundamental conflicts between the competition-based, free-market system that governs today’s global marketplace and indigenous economic models. As a result of economic globalization and the international and national trade policies, indigenous peoples have been forcibly displaced from their lands and robbed of natural resources like water, forests, wildlife, minerals, oil, and natural gas by governments and corporations seeking economic growth.

In contrast, indigenous peoples have used and sustained these same natural resources for centuries, as indigenous cultures and economies are based on deeply-rooted notions of reciprocity with nature, sustainability, responsibility to one’s community, spiritual balance, and a respect for past and future generations. What's more, while indigenous farmers have traditionally grown their products for local markets and communities, emphasizing crop diversity and meeting the community's needs, globalized trade agreements have forced farmers to produce mono-crops for mass markets.

So while fair trade certainly begins to address concerns of economic equity and environmental sustainability, it stops short of incorporating the equal participation of indigenous communities into determining trade policy, or of reconfiguring trade to reflect the values, traditions, and world views of indigenous peoples. Perhaps it never set out to do this, but then can we truly call it fair yet, or is just fairer trade?

Looking ahead, there's the potential to address gaps in the fair trade movement by allowing indigenous farmers to play a more central role in devising how to create opportunities for all small-scale farmers to make sustainable livelihoods.

Written by Heidi Zeller. Heidi is an organizer with the Kansas Action Network (KAN), a member of the Let Justice Roll coalition. Through the Wage Justice initiative, UUSC is working closely with Let Justice Roll and KAN to engage faith-based activists in grassroots campaigns, starting with Unitarian Universalists in Georgia, Kansas, and Oklahoma. (Photo: Heidi Zeller, July 2007)

On Tuesday, July 24, members of Kansas Action Network gathered in front of the State Capitol building in Topeka to “praise the wage,” that is, the increase in the federal minimum wage. Yet we all knew we were there for a far more compelling reason: to demand an increase in the woefully inadequate Kansas minimum wage of $2.65 an hour. That’s right – Kansas has the distinction of being the state with the lowest minimum wage (outside of the five states in the South with no wage floor).

But Kansas is a land of extremes, and this shamefully low minimum tells only one side of the story. I have been working on this campaign for a little over two months, and what’s so striking are the many passionate wage justice advocates I have met during this short time. These are the people who come to mind every time I feel myself slipping into a mood of cynicism. In other words, despite the many reasons to feel frustrated, it is impossible to be of that mindset for more than a nanosecond.

Contrary to what is often portrayed in mainstream news about this symbolic “heartland” state, Kansas progressives not only exist, but they are numerous, strong willed, and motivated to make positive change happen. They are from seemingly different universes – trade and farm unionists, independent living advocates, and organizers from the peace, justice, and faith communities – but they are united under a common goal to fight for wage justice for workers of all persuasions.

So with that goal in mind, representatives from these groups came together this past Tuesday to publicly launch our campaign to “Raise the Wage” in Kansas. Many members of the press were there too, with cameras and pens in hand. KAN’s president, Carla James, pointed out what millions of Americans know all too well: “When the number of working people living in poverty has increased every year for the past five years during a period characterized as a strong economy, the conclusion is unmistakable: our current system is broken and must be fixed.”

Andy Sanchez, executive secretary-treasurer for the Kansas AFL-CIO, spoke of the labor movement’s role in calling for “better pay, better quality of life, better jobs. This is an opportunity for the unions of the Kansas AFL-CIO to help their neighbors, work to change public policies and create a more just economy.”

Finally, I described how we plan to push for a more equitable minimum wage, through relentless petition drives and public education. I stressed that, with the long-overdue federal wage increase finally taking effect, Kansas workers are falling farther and farther behind. My final words: “Let’s bump up our shameful $2.65 minimum, and pump up our state economy in the process. Most importantly, let’s reward hard work with fair pay.”

To drive home the overall point, we handed out little baggies with a label reading: “$2.65 is peanuts!” filled with, well, you get the idea.

 

What do we want?
Justice!
When do we want it?
Now!

¿Qué queremos?
¡Justicia!
¿Cuando?
¡Ahora!

There ain't no power
like the power of the people,
cuz the power of the people
won't stop!

Gathered outside an H.G. Hills supermarket in Nashville, wearing yellow t-shirts that practically glowed in the burning Tennessee afternoon, we were shouting together. We were women and men of all ages, classes, races, and faiths, and we were holding signs, marching, chanting, singing, and praying together at a rally in support of pork-processing workers at the Smithfield plant in Tar Heel, N.C.

This rally was just one in a series of events to urge people to boycott Smithfield products and pressure supermarkets to stop selling them -- but for us it was a last-minute addition to our agenda at a poultry worker human rights convening. Poultry workers and workers' justice advocates, including UUSC's partners MPOWER and the Northwest Arkansas Worker Justice Center, had traveled from Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts to build the poultry worker justice movement by networking, sharing information, building strategies, and deepening skills in community organizing.

The convening was a historic event at which workers' centers in the Southeast were meeting face to face for the first time. This rally, a show of solidarity between poultry and pork processing workers, and between workers' centers and unions, was a fitting accompaniment to the convening.

Johanna Chao Rittenburg, manager of UUSC's Economic Justice Program, and I, along with allies from the Center for Community Change, Oxfam America, Interfaith Worker Justice, the Highlander Research and Education Center, East Tennessee Jobs with Justice, and the Humane Society of the United States, were participating in the convening to connect with the workers' centers and learn how we can support them most effectively in our collective efforts to improve the wages and working conditions of poultry workers. Before this trip, I'd only been working at UUSC for four weeks, so I felt extremely fortunate to participate in the convening and meet the amazing people who dedicate themselves to this work.

After the rally, we piled onto the bus that would bring us back to the conference center to carry on with our agenda. Gulping water and drained from the sun, we felt tired but energized at the same time. When we returned to our meeting we sat in a circle and shared our thoughts on the rally, each of us summing our reflections up in one word: excited, connected, solidarity, unity, hopeful.

For more information on workers' rights in the poultry industry, check out these resources:

"Injury and Injustice," (PDF) a UFCW Fact Sheet on the Poultry Industry.

"Finger Licking Bad: How Poultry Producers are Ravaging the Rural South," (PDF) By Suzi Parker, Grist magazine, February 21, 2006.

"Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers' Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants," (PDF) a Human Rights Watch report that profiles both the meat and poultry industries.

Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food, (book) by Steve Striffler. An anthropologist's expose on the U.S. poultry processing industry.