Workers’ Rights
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Statement
The right of agricultural workers around the country to organize into unions and bargain collectively has now been recognized in the fields of one grower in California
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Lucas Benitez
Lucas Benitez was born in Guerrero, Mexico, and moved to Immokalee, Florida, at the age of 16 to work in the tomato fields. The wages were barely enough to live on, and workers faced a climate of intimidation, fear, and violence. The grueling conditions angered him, and he had to act. Benitez got together with…
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Dolores Huerta
Huerta was born in 1930 in a small mining town in New Mexico—her father was a farmworker and miner who became a state legislator, and her mother was a waitress, cannery worker, and activist with an entrepreneurial and independent spirit that greatly influenced her daughter. In spite of prejudice against Hispanics, young Huerta excelled in…
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Lech Walesa
Lech Walesa was born in Poland in 1943. He worked as a car mechanic, served in the army for two years, and was employed in the Gdansk shipyards as an electrician. In 1970, during the clash between the workers and the government, Walesa was one of the leaders of the shipyard workers. In 1978, along…
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Librada Paz
Librada Paz defends the dignity of immigrant farmworkers in the United States. At the age of 15, she left her indigenous community in southern Mexico in search of an opportunity to improve life for her family. She eventually made her way to New York where she found work in the fields picking vegetables and fruits.…
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Zbigniew Bujak
Biography: Zbigniew Bujak led the Solidarity underground in the Warsaw region from the imposition of martial law in 1981 until his arrest in 1986. Born in 1954 and trained as an electrical technician and soldier, Bujak became active in the opposition in 1978 while he was working at the Ursus tractor factory. After organizing a…
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Over 100K sign tipped wage ballot petition
Tags Share The Boston Herald notes Kerry Kennedy’s involvement in a new ballot initiative that seeks to provide a standard minimum wage for tipped workers. Read the full article for more information about the One Fair Wage campaign.
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SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher to Receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights 2023 Ripple of Hope Award
Tags Share New York, NY, November 14, 2023 – Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights today announced that Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA president, actor, writer, and activist, will receive the 2023 Ripple of Hope Award in recognition of her leadership advocating for workers’ rights. Drescher will join fellow 2023 honorees, including The Edwin Barbey Charitable Trust, a…
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NCWIT Conversations for Change with Shijuade Kadree and Jeffrey Siminoff: The Criminalization of Inclusion
Tags Share In the backdrop of anti-DEI proposals, policies and legislation across the U.S., fueling anti-DEI rhetoric and complicating equity initiatives, Shijuade Kadree of the Aspen Institute and Jeffrey Siminoff addresses the complicated landscape of DEI advocacy within the current climate, and how to do equity work amid uncertainty alongside strategies to promote inclusivity.
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Dignity at Work for Educators
Tags Share In a panel conversation at the 2023 Teacher Training Institute in San Diego, Jeffrey Siminoff moderated a conversation with two educators in Southern California – Guadalupe Carrasco Cardona and 2022 Teacher of the Year Timothy Stiven, where they discussed what dignity meant for them at work in the classroom, the value of community…
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Union wins at New York farms raise hopes for once-powerful UFW
Tags Share Speaking with The Guardian, our president Kerry Kennedy celebrates a milestone moment for the United Farm Workers. In the UFW’s biggest organizing success in years, it recently unionized 500 workers at five New York farms. Recalling RFK Human Rights’ early involvement with the United Farm Workers, Kerry notes the historically bleak conditions for…
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Workplace diversity is under attack: Here’s how employers should respond
Tags Share By Jeffrey Siminoff. Read the original article in Quartz here. Texas governor Greg Abbott’s chief of staff recently issued a memo attacking diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the workplace (and offices that support them) as problematic and discriminatory against unnamed groups. This was on the back of Florida’s efforts, blocked for…
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