Philomena Addo

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Addo, 54, a widow and mother of three, lost her farmland to a gold mine and became an activist order to represent her community in negotiations with the mining company. Photo: Jeff Deutsch/Oxfam America

Since today, December 10, is international Human Rights Day, I am just reading over a short history of the drafting of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted on this date in 1948. Despite the fact that the UDHR is a “declaration” and not a formal binding treaty, it has served as the foundation of the modern human rights movement: Every time a country references one of its articles in a constitution, or cites it in a legal decision in a court, the UDHR continues to gather strength and move the world to a place where there are no excuses for violations of basic freedoms.

The notion of basic rights is behind our work at Oxfam, so I am also thinking about those people we work with who are fighting for their own rights, and those of others, every day. Here are just three examples that stand out:

1. Philomena Addo, a local political representative in a small town in Ghana, told me last year that she is negotiating with mining companies from a position of strength, now that she understands her basic right to be consulted: “Now they know if they want to work here they need to come and ask for our consent. Now they recognize we know our rights, and that is why they are respecting us.”

2. Ines Santizo, working in Guatemala to help women survivors of domestic violence to understand their basic rights to live free from violence. She told me that she tries to teach women three things about themselves: “Who I am, what I am worth, and what I am capable of doing.”

3. The courageous people and organizations involved in Oxfam’s worker’s rights program in the US: Some of the most basic rights in the UDHR do not apply to farmworkers in the US, such as the right to a basic minimum wage, for example. The right to form a labor union (Article 23) is also routinely denied.

Eleanor Roosevelt was the US representative on the UN committee that wrote the UDHR, she said that in the field of human rights “to stand still is to retreat.” This is one of the reasons Oxfam places the basic rights of people at the center of our work, and why we won’t stop working on them.

People are trapped in this trailer park unless they want to walk in high water or have a canoe. They wait on a canoe to come by so that they can go to the store. Photo: Telley Madina / Oxfam America.

Telley Madina is a Coastal Communities Program Officer as part of Oxfam America’s US program. This is the second of two blogs.

Previously, I wrote about how Hurricane Isaac brought new levels of flooding to my state and my city, and how the loss of wetlands has exposed us to risk in new ways.

Bad news, for sure; but even worse is who’s getting hurt the most when extreme weather hits. Turns out it’s the most vulnerable – people who may be poor, elderly, disabled, unemployed. While I traveled through Louisiana in the wake of Isaac, I saw how people were able to cope with the impact of even a mild hurricane, which knocked out power for days.

The day after Isaac, not much was open around New Orleans. I stopped at the Burger King in Gretna, one of the few places open that was selling hot food and jam-packed with people. One guy, aware he would soon lose power, had pulled all the steak and shrimp out of his freezer the night before and hosted  a barbecue. The guy next to him barely had enough money for a sandwich. I had no worries about the guy who might have lost some frozen supplies — but I wondered what would happen to the guy who was likely to head home to a place that may have been under water, but certainly would be hotter than heck.

Oxfam and our partners work in the Gulf Coast

to defend the rights of the most vulnerable, and to help them build resilience. I’m lucky enough to have the resources to prepare for this type of event, and to cope with the aftermath. All around me, though, I see what it means not to have the money to invest in simple tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Telley Madina is a Coastal Communities Officer as part of Oxfam America’s US program. This is the first of two blogs.

Before Isaac hit shore and lumbered through Louisiana and Mississippi,  I relocated my family from New Orleans to the Baton Rouge area. As I struggled to make my way back to New Orleans, searching for roads that weren’t blocked by downed trees or water, I was stunned to see the extent of flooding—in  areas that had never seen it before.

While Isaac clocked in as a relatively mild Category 1 storm, with nowhere near the destructive power of Katrina, the swelling water sent shock waves through our communities. As all of us are scrambling to restore order, we’re also reaching out to our friends and family who are vulnerable and hurting; and wondering what we need to do to prevent the next big storm from washing away more of our homes, businesses, and the culture we love.

Men getting around in water right next to the road in St. John Parish, which has never seen flooding before. Photo by: Telley Madina / Oxfam America.

Isaac hit especially hard in poorer coastal parishes, where the federal government had not invested in flood protection the way it had in New Orleans. Our partners are still reaching out to their communities, with direct aid and with plans for a long road to recovery. Plaquemines Parish, where our good friend Rev. Edwards runs the Zion Travelers Cooperative Center, was deluged after the water topped the levees. Many of the roads are still closed, and the power is still out in many spots; we’ve managed to contact some folks who report the damage is so extensive, and so close on the heels of Katrina’s devastation, that they may not struggle to rebuild again. Read the rest of this entry »

Daniella Burgi-Palomino (pictured at lower left) is Oxfam’s program associate for our US regional office.

Fifteen miles. That’s how far I walked recently on a hot spring day—along with organizers from Oxfam partner the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), union members, students, and community supporters—to raise awareness of the rights of North Carolina tobacco pickers on the annual Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice.

Photo: Oxfam America

Like many US farmworkers, North Carolina’s approximately 150,000 pickers often live in overcrowded and substandard housing and make an annual average income of less than $8,000. They also face severe negative health effects, absorbing the nicotine equivalent of almost two packs of cigarettes a day simply from picking the leaves on the fields… which puts a whole different spin on the term “second-hand smoke”.

Our journey began, appropriately enough, in a place called Tobaccoville. We began our walk before 9am outside of the main RJ Reynolds plant. Large trees and a long fence around the entire property blocked any sight into the inside workings of tobacco manufacturing, but when I took a deep breath, I couldn’t miss the smell of the tobacco in the air.

 Our group included organizers from other Oxfam partners Student Action with Farmworkers  and National Farmworker Ministry. We carried red FLOC flags and signs calling for RJ Reynolds to meet with FLOC to negotiate improved working conditions for tobacco pickers. We drew a few honks, but mostly stares as we walked along the narrow picturesque countryside road.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Andrew Blejwas / Oxfam America

“It’s not our problem, it’s not our problem, it’s not our problem.”

That’s the frequent mantra of those who are in the position to create significant change—but won’t. And it’s a mantra being invoked again in the southeast United States. This time by Publix Supermarkets, which is resisting calls from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)—an Oxfam partner—to double the wages of tomato pickers.

Publix’s resistance might make sense if it were not for the fact that all it takes to double the daily wage of tomato pickers is paying one more penny per pound of tomatoes picked.

So when Publix officials say “CIW’s complaints should be addressed with the employers of the workers, not with retailers and their customers,” they are essentially saying “it’s not our problem.” But denying that it’s a problem is an easy way to deny ownership of a solution. Companies like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Whole Foods understood that they were in the position to put pressure on their contractors to improve working conditions in the fields. Those contractors don’t want to lose the business of large corporations. That gives those companies, and Publix, significant leverage.

Read the rest of this entry »

A prayer vigil in support of restaurant workers was held recently in front of Tony Moran's Restaurant in New Oleans.

Oxfam America’s Andrew Blejwas reports on the findings of a new study on the disparities restaurant workers face.

Finding good food in New Orleans is like catching a string of beads during Mardi Gras: stand in the right place and it’s likely to hit you in the face. From Creole to Cajun—and everything in between—the city’s food is as diverse and interesting as its population. And just as New Orleans’s food mirrors the diversity of American culture, the conditions facing restaurant staff in the city reflect American disparities broadly.

A new series of reports, Behind the Kitchen Door, outlines the dramatic racial, gender, and economic disparity among workers in Orleans and four other American cities: Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Portland, Maine. The reports are by the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), an Oxfam America partner in New Orleans. Based on surveys of more than 2,500 workers, the reports reveal two main findings, according to Jose Oliva, ROC’s national policy coordinator: “One, the restaurant industry is resilient, even in the face of this Great Recession. The other is that these are not the kind of jobs we want to have in America when we come out of the recession.”

The reports reveal a number of startling figures about the jobs that are available: Read the rest of this entry »

Jonathan Coley stands outside the office of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Jonathan Coley is a CHANGE leader for Oxfam America and a student at Samford University. Here’s his account of a recent visit to Immokalee, Florida, where many of the nation’s tomatoes are grown—and often picked under grueling conditions.

When you’re enjoying your sandwich or burrito at lunch, do you think about the hand that picked your tomatoes?

Despite working in one of the most dangerous industries in the United States, the average farm worker earns just $7,500 a year with few benefits and no overtime pay. Children as young as 12 work in the fields.

I knew many of these facts before I traveled to Immokalee, Florida, recently for the annual gathering of the Student/Farmworker Alliance. However, I was not prepared for the realities I confronted when I walked the streets of this little-known Florida town. Read the rest of this entry »

Many US farmworkers—like these North Carolina tobacco pickers—face low pay and hazardous working conditions, but a new bill called AgJOBS could help improve their situation. Photo: Liliana Rodriguez / Oxfam America

Sarah Zipkin is the project officer for Oxfam’s decent work program in the US. This is the second of two guest posts by Sarah about food, farms, and what it means to support workers’ rights in 2009.

Less than a week after I marched for workers in North Carolina–complete with tobacco leaf sign around my neck–I was back in Boston representing Oxfam at a pre-release screening of Food, Inc, a film opening soon that takes a disturbing look at the mechanized food industry in this country, from field to fork.

As I watched it, I was glad I’d eaten a veggie pizza beforehand, since I learned that a lot of our meat comes from mechanized slaughterhouses–often the site of inhumane conditions and questionable practices. I am already obsessed with looking over labels in the grocery store, but since seeing this film, I’m even more fixated. Now that I’ve actually started thinking about where our food comes from, I can’t help but wonder: what dark secrets hide behind those colorful packages?

Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Zipkin on a visit to a farm in Mississippi.

Sarah Zipkin is the project officer for Oxfam’s decent work program in the US. This is the first of two guest posts by Sarah about food, farms, and what it means to support workers’ rights in 2009.

Last week, as I walked through the doors of the RJ Reynolds tobacco company headquarters in Winston-Salem, NC, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was having a flashback to another time. My parents told me about the grape boycott led by Cesar Chavez in the 1960s, and I read about farmworker rights in the Grapes of Wrath in high school–yet here I was in 2009, walking in a rally with a painted tobacco leaf hanging around my neck that said “Justice Now for Farmworkers!”

Today, a farmworker in this country makes around $13,000 a year and has a life expectancy of 49 years. (Yes, you read that right.) Hazardous working conditions, long hours, and a lack of health services take a toll on these workers, especially tobacco pickers–some even get physically ill. And this has been the reality for over 30 years.

That’s why 40 of us–students, people of faith, worker rights advocates, union leaders, and grandmothers–turned out on that balmy Wednesday morning in Winston-Salem. We were ready to stand up for farmworker rights at RJ Reynolds’ annual shareholders meeting, and to bring the voice of farmworkers to the company’s Board of Directors and CEO Susan Ivey.

Read the rest of this entry »

Demonstrators gather in suppport of justice for workers employed by Smithfield Foods. Photo by UFCW

When your job is to help kill and process about 32,000 hogs a day—as workers in Tar Heel, NC, do at the Smithfield Foods plant—there’s not much to cheer about. The work is grim, the pace is blinding, and injury is a constant threat. But as 2009 dawns, many of the approximately 5,000 workers at the world’s biggest pig processing facility are beaming. For them, life on the slaughterhouse floor is about to get a little better.

Read the rest of this entry »