Skip to main content

Farmworkers at Ruby Ridge Farms.


Here is a little bit I have cut and pasted in from material UFW sent me. If you want to sign the petition it may help the workers at Ruby Ridge Farms. 

This Boss Brings a Rifle to Work

Workers will hand petition in TOMORROW

We've written to you before about the unbearable situation workers face at WA's Ruby Ridge dairy face on a daily basis. Help workers fight back.
The workers are demanding that Ruby Ridge's lender, Northwest Farm Credit Services, take a stance on this issue. TOMORROW, January 11, Ruby Ridge workers and their supporters are going to the the lender's headquarters to deliver thousands ofpetition signatures. So far, there are 20,105 signatures on the workers petition.
This is the situarion at Ruby Ridge dairy. Ruby Ridge is being sued for violation of Washington wage and hour laws, unlawful discharge by firing 1/3 of the workforce and even assault. The workers who haven't yet been fired are afraid they're next.
Owner Dick Bengen often carries a rifle with him on his large dairy farm. To Dick Bengen, that rifle is his anti-union rifle that he uses to scare the workers into line. Mr. Bengen made a point of explaining the special purpose of this rifle to Miguel Cuevas, when he told him, "This rifle is for those people with the union."

Workers, members of the faith community and most recently, thousands of UFW supporters, contacted Northwest Farm Credit Services, the bank that loaned $13 million to Ruby Ridge. They demand the bank use its influence to resolve the issues at the dairy. The bank's mortgage language specifically prohibits illegal behavior such as the workers say is happening at Ruby Ridge. 

The bank continues to ignore our calls. According to Margarito Martinez, who was fired from Ruby Ridge for supporting the union and fighting for his rights, "When workers and supporters tried to reach out to the bank to intervene in this matter, they turned us down, saying they did not want to be involved."

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Just War and Just a War

One of the thorniest problems man face is when, if every is war justified.  The bible says there is a time for war and a time for peace, but that could be just a bow to the inevitability of war in the fallen world.  If also says that they will beat there swords into plough shares and study war no more.  Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, William Miller and other Catholic Workers often ascribed to pacifism or near total pacifism face with the near impossibility of every untangling the moral consequences of violence from the ends desired in undertaking it. But St. Augustine, faced with a world where Christians were starting to replace pagans as political leaders and Christians we soldiers in obedience to the leaders tried to come up with criteria by which war could be measured.   Augustine knew that the Gospel question on it was complex.  One the one hand Jesus told people to turn the other  cheek and also told Peter to put away his sword and not defe...
4 comments
Read more

Alone but not Lonely

It seems that I am tied into interlocking conversations with people on all sides of me and with my blog readership.  Yesterday I wrote Many Things I Have Been #2  ( http://roominhouseblues.blogspot.com/2011/04/many-things-i-have-been-2.html ) in the morning. .  I wrote other things and did the tasks and errands of my day, including job searches. then in the evening I went to a "Mercy Night" a communal penance service (with private confession of course) in my parish.  I came home near the end of my roommate Scott's Bible study. Scott goes to Mars Hill, a conservative evangelical youth oriented church, and his perspective on some aspects of the bible is very different than my Catholic one, yet we focus more on what we have in common.   After the bible study Scott and KJ, who stayed, got into a conversation on various things.  I told them a little of what happened at Mercy Night. Then KJ asked a question.  I guess he...
Post a Comment
Read more