{"id":615,"date":"2012-01-23T17:45:14","date_gmt":"2012-01-23T23:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/?p=615"},"modified":"2012-01-24T21:19:19","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T03:19:19","slug":"family-farm-defenders-declares-its-solidarity-with-international-longshore-workers-denying-workers-the-right-to-organize-is-a-gross-violation-of-food-sovereignty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/?p=615","title":{"rendered":"Family Farm Defenders Declares its Solidarity with International Longshore Workers – Denying Workers The Right to Organize is a Gross Violation of Food Sovereignty"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For Immediate Release Jan. 22, 2012<\/div>\n
Contact:\u00a0 John E. Peck, executive director\u00a0 #608-260-0900<\/div>\n
Family Farm Defenders, a national organization based in Madison, WI expresses its solidarity with International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) Local 21, and strongly condemns all attempts to deny workers their basic right to organize.<\/div>\n

\u201cSimilar strategies of collective action have been successfully used by farmers and workers for centuries in their struggles against corporate robber barons and the fight being waged today on the docks in Washington State, pitting unionized longshore workers against greedy grain exporters, is really no different,\u201d notes John E. Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders.\u00a0 \u201cIt was this historic solidarity that brought ILWU members all the way from the West Coast to bolster the ranks of the hundreds of thousands of protesters outside the state capitol in Madison during the Cheddar Uprising last spring, and which is prompting workers and farmers in Wisconsin and across the nation to express our support for their effort now.\u00a0 An injury to one is an injury to all.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an active member of La Via Campesina, the largest umbrella organization for family farmers in the world, Family Farm Defenders is a staunch advocate of food sovereignty. One of the underlying principles of food sovereignty is that ALL workers deserve a living wage, dignified working conditions, and the right to organize.\u00a0\u00a0 This guarantee extends to everyone working in the food\/farm system \u2013 not just farmers and farmworkers, but also meatpackers, retail clerks, restaurant servers, truck drivers, and dockworkers.<\/div>\n
The union-busting corporation, EGT Development, which is now hiring scabs to replace ILWU workers, is hardly unfamiliar to family farmers as its dominant partner, Bunge North America, has a notorious reputation for commodity price fixing and taxpayer subsidized dumping.\u00a0\u00a0 Bunge is among the world\u2019s top three grain traders and saw its profits jump by 77% in the last quarter of 2007 thanks to speculation on the global food crisis.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By the end of 2010 Bunge saw its revenues balloon to $45.7 billion with $2.35 billion in reported profits.\u00a0 As a major peddler of livestock feed and agro fuels, Bunge is also responsible for environmental destruction, industrial factory farm expansion, and biotech contamination worldwide.<\/div>\n
\u201cThis crude attempt by EGT to consolidate its control over West Coast export facilities is clearly designed to take advantage of the latest round of bad trade deals such as the Korea U.S. Trade Agreement (KORUS) and the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP),\u201d continued John E. Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders. \u201cTo be honest the ILWU will be doing U.S. taxpayers a huge favor, too, by blocking any load of scab grain headed overseas, since these cheap exports are only made possible by denying farmers a fair market price and larding massive subsidies onto outfits like Bungee.\u201d<\/div>\n

Family Farm Defenders will also be urging its members and allies to contact Pres. Obama to express their outrage that the White House is directing the U.S. Coast Guard to support EGT Development against the ILWU in this labor dispute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Immediate Release Jan. 22, 2012 Contact:\u00a0 John E. Peck, executive director\u00a0 #608-260-0900 Family Farm Defenders, a national organization based in Madison, WI expresses its solidarity with International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) Local 21, and strongly condemns all attempts to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foodsovereignty","category-workersrights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyfarmers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}