Coronavirus: The Latest

Updated, 3/28/2021

Information is coming out daily that expands the implications of the current Coronavirus pandemic to all sorts of demographics. Our focus remains on farm workers. Their exposure to the coronavirus is of tremendous concern right now among both farm worker organizing groups, migrant health clinics and labor camp ministries around the country. We will be working with other allies to seek protection for farm workers and their families. Most of this can be done from wherever you are, so please help us raise awareness and create impact.

Major steps:

National Farm Worker Ministry has joined Justice for Migrant Women and a number of our farm worker partners/allies in signing the statement of concern found here. An organizational letter was sent to legislators to share these concerns on March 30th, during Farmworker Awareness Week. See the letter here.
NFWM participated in a call for Rural Faith Leaders Join Workers Calling for Protection and Relief from COVID-19 Outbreaks. See the press release here.

How does this tie into the work of NFWM?

The statement includes justice issues we and our partners have been fighting for for years: fair wages, immigration reform, decent housing, access to health care, the end to sexual violence and harassment, and freedom from exploitation. See our resources on farm worker issues here: https://nfwm.org/farm-workers/farm-worker-issues/

Recent NFWM Action Alerts:

9/17/2020: Stand in Solidarity with Tobacco Farm Workers in North Carolina

6/30/2020: The FARM Act

5/1/2020: Washington: Call companies and urge them to negotiate with their workers and not retaliate against them for striking! Call Governor Inslee and the Attorney General’s office to demand that workers receive immediate hazard pay, including time lost during the strike.

4/26/2020: Washington: Emergency rules for farm worker safety in Washington State

4/22/2020 Nationwide: Make unemployment benefits and sufficient paid sick leave available to farm workers

4/9/2020: North Carolina: Tell Governor Cooper to take action to protect agricultural workers during COVID-19

4/6/2020: Nationwide: Farmers left out of Covid-19 Federal Aid

4/3/2020: Virginia: Removing the Farm Worker exemption to the minimum wage bill

4/3/2020: Florida: Protect workers in Immokalee

Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor by NFWM Supporters and Allies:

NFWM Board member Sam Trickey, Rural Women’s Health Project Program Coordinator Robin Lewy, and FWAF Spokesperson Antonio Tovar shine a light on the vaccine dilemna facing farm workers in Florida in the Gainesville Sun. https://www.gainesville.com/story/opinion/2021/03/25/robin-lewy-antonio-tovar-and-samuel-trickey-essential-but-ineligible/4751465001/
Anna Sterne wrote one of the first to raise concern about wages, in the Wall Street Journal. Let’s Be Fair About Wages For Our Vital Farmworkers
Jacques Leslie in the Los Angeles Times. Op-Ed: The White House wants to give farmworkers who put food on your table a dire pay cut
Greg Asbed’s OpEd in the New York Times addressed the profound impact
the pandemic would have on farm workers. What Happens if America’s 2.5 Million Farmworkers Get Sick?
Sam Trickey addressed the exclusion of farm workers from concerns about
the virus’s impact on agriculture in the Gainesville Sun. ‘We’re not tractors, we’re persons’
Mily Trevino-Sauceda wrote an opinion in USA Today that gives a very personal view of what the coronavirus impact is for farm workers. Essential farmworkers put food on our tables. Where are their basic protections?
Nicholas Marritz, an attorney with the Immigrant Advocacy Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center, a nonprofit group that provides free legal help to low-income people in Virginia, urges action: Don’t leave Culpeper’s ‘essential’ farm workers behind