When we published Jerry Cohen’s letter to Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, calling for an end to the 1935 exclusion of our nation’s farmworkers and domestic workers from the rights and protections of the National Labor Relations Act, we did not know what reaction to expect. Were we alone we asked each other? Now we know! The wave of positive reaction can be summed up in three words, “it’s about time!” One domestic worker said it in one word, “finally!”

Today, Cesar Chavez Day 2009, we launch a national initiative to reverse 74 years of government-sanctioned racial and economic discrimination directed at farmworkers and domestic workers. As our letter to Hilda Solis stated, “if not now, when?”

We are not alone – the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (FLOC) and Teamster Local 890 (Salinas) are co-sponsors. These are the heroes who work every day helping to empower and organize farmworkers and domestic workers. In addition, 222 like-minded and committed people from 25 states have already written to us asking to be included as founding members of LABOR JUSTICE.

We are not naïve. Calling for a national initiative to erase racial discrimination and bring justice to farmworkers and domestic workers is easy, but as Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from his jail cell in Birmingham, the work of developing the constructive and nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth to right these wrongs will be difficult, but it can be done!

Empowered by the words of Dr. King, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” we look forward to the day when this last vestige of slavery and segregation will forever be erased from our nation’s history.
¡SI SE PUEDE!

Now down to business! We need 1000 Founding Members for LABOR JUSTICE. Today, we have 222. Will you come in with us? Can we count on you? Are you willing to speak out against this government-sanctioned racial discrimination directed at farmworkers and domestic workers? If your answer is YES! – submit your information on this page. – - WE WILL RESPOND.