Dept of Labor Lawsuit Pt 2
I'm Bob Larson. A letter sent recently to Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta expressing disappointment over the lawsuit brought by his agency against Sakuma Brothers Farms is intended to be a wake-up call.Save Family Farming director Gerald Baron says they also want to educate farmers who may not be aware of the anti-farming messages broadcast on Seattle media ...
BARON ... "They're not aware of what anti-farm groups such as Community 2 Community and Puget Soundkeeper and Resources and Western Environmental Law Center, what these groups are doing to try to turn our public policy against farmers by appealing to the people in our cities."
Director Gerald Baron says the letter is a not-so-subtle nudge ...
BARON ... "We're hoping that the secretary will take notice and that the Department of Labor will be on notice that we are watching, that we are not going to allow the kind of abuse of farmers that occurred within the EPA with the What's Upstream Campaign. And that's really one of our jobs is to be a watchdog of our regulatory agencies and to bring public attention when we believe there's abuse of farmers happening by these regulators."
Baron says as the misinformation grows, they want to spread the truth ...
BARON ... "This is an important part of the job is informing farmers as to why this kind of public outreach and communicating to the people in the cities and trying to do something about this urban-rural divide is so important for their future."
Baron says they've also launched the Farm Worker Justice Now project with a website, www.farmworkerjusticenow.org ... aimed at protecting opportunities for guest workers and countering false accusations.