Create a National Cesar Chavez Day to Honor Workers' Rights

Workers' rights advocates have at least 1,000 reasons to be worried about America’s agricultural laborers' vulnerability to slavery and human trafficking. In the past decade, there have been over 1,000 workers subjected to involuntary servitude and slavery in the state of Florida alone. That's why the NAACP, Sierra Club, SEIU, AFL-CIO, United Farm Workers, and others are building a campaign to recognize National Cesar Chavez Day to celebrate and promote labor rights.

Cesar Chavez, an American born into a family of migrant farm workers in Arizona, was dedicated to the civil rights of migrant laborers in the United States. Despite his eighth grade education, he became one of the most influential union organizers of his time and is often compared to Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and other purveyors of civil rights and non-violence. His life experience taught him hard lessons about the injustices, inequality and risks inherent to migrant workers. Chavez organized his fellow workers to shed light on these injustices. He inspired thousands of laborers and non-laborers alike to join him in massive marches, boycotts, and even hunger strikes to gain basic labor rights that agricultural laborers were largely excluded from before 1975.  He was also one of the first to make the connection between workers' rights and environmentalism, drawing attention to the harmful effects of insecticides on people and the land.

Today, consumers across the country continue to fight for farm worker justice. Our access to good food is just as important as knowing our food is picked and prepared by people who work under fair and healthy conditions.  Without a guarantee of their rights as workers, thousands of agricultural laborers in the United States can be at risk for modern slavery and human trafficking.  While the U.S. continues to struggle to adequately regulate its massive agricultural industry, the immense progress that’s been made so far is a legacy of the seeds planted by Cesar Chavez.  We can play a role in making sure this issue doesn’t get sidelined.

Here are three things you can do to support the legacy of Cesar Chavez:

1)   Get local: Eleven states are on board for their own Cesar Chavez day.  If you don't live in California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Utah, Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Rhode Island and Nevada, start your own petition for one in your state.  Check out this list of allies and encourage local organizations to partner with you. Even America's favorite faux-President, actor Martin Sheen, has made his own personal endorsement.

2)   Get Organized: Start planning activities, speakers and events to celebrate workers' rights and educate your community. Need some help? Check out these resources or the Coalition for Immokalee Worker's anti-slavery campaigns. Start with your local school, church, like-minded non-profit organizations,  your workplace or local community center and begin planning an even for March 31, 2011.

3)   Get Going: Spark a conversation with five people you know today about Cesar Chavez and encourage them to sign the National Cesar Chavez Day petition, which Rep. Joe Baca (D-CA) has introduced as HR 213 in the House of Representatives with 43 co-sponsors. HR 213 urges Congress to establish a legal, public holiday for Cesar Chavez.

Let’s put the legacy of Cesar Chavez on our national calendar for March 31, 2011. Together we can honor our history and the future of justice and equality for all in our great country.  In the words of Chavez, "Sí, se puede" or "Yes, it can be done."

Photo Credit: Richard Winchell