National Council celebrates success on labor issue.

Two former opponents in a years-long workers' rights struggle were co-recipients of a Peace and Justice Award of Excellence from the National Council of Churches (NCC) General Assembly. The event marked a significant success for all involved, reported Stan Noffsinger, general secretary of the General Board.

Baldemar Velasquez, of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), and William Bryan, CEO of the Mt. Olive (N.C.) Pickle Company, were awarded for a labor agreement ending a five-and-a-half-year consumer boycott of the company. Mt. Olive Pickle Company is the second largest independent pickle producer in the US. The agreement, made with the North Carolina Growers Association, allows 8,000 guest workers from Mexico to gain a contract and union representation, increases what the company pays for cucumbers, offers a financial incentive for growers to provide workers compensation, and provides better pay, grievance procedures, and bereavement leave to farm workers, among other measures. The "H2A Program" guest workers are the first such workers in the US to gain these goals, the NCC said. For the past four years the NCC has supported those working on the negotiations; the NCC General Assembly endorsed the boycott last year.

Noffsinger credited the continued support of the NCC and its concern for farm workers, along with the efforts of Velasquez and Bryan, for bringing "out the best." Bryan, who has worked collegially with Brethren disaster relief in North Carolina, "worked to radically change the environment for the least of these," Noffsinger said. The NCC made it clear that "it's not just a matter of the good guys and the bad guys," he said, "but it's a matter of bringing people together in peace. And it was done."

"I rejoice," said retired pastor Gene Bucher, who last year finished a four-year term as a Church of the Brethren delegate to the NCC. "It is a great victory." Concerns that prompted him to vote for the boycott included "workers who hadn't gotten raises for a long time, that workers could earn a living wage," he said. He heard the initial presentation of the boycott by a Presbyterian group. "I thought they went about it in a careful and compassionate way."

In 2000 the NCC assembly voted support for FLOC after hearing of difficult, unhealthy, and dangerous conditions for migrant farm laborers. FLOC began the Mt. Olive boycott in 1999 after investigating farm worker conditions in North Carolina since in the early 1990s. In Nov. 2003 the assembly endorsed the boycott, along with a consumer boycott of Taco Bell that still continues--the first boycotts it had endorsed for 15 years since a boycott of Roy Dutch/Shell connected with apartheid South Africa. The NCC reported that the Taco Bell boycott was called in 2001 by the Coalition of Immokalee (Fla.) Workers following the company's refusal to address worker exploitation by its tomato suppliers. For more information about the Taco Bell boycott see www.pcusa.org/boycott.

The NCC regards boycotts as a measure of last resort. Bucher remembered delegates expressing concern for those in business and other workers who would be affected by the boycotts, and for owners of Taco Bell franchises. Delegates talked about going to speak personally and explain the issues with local franchises, he said.

"The most important thing the NCC is doing is continuing to be a voice for Christians concerned about justice in the world," said Frances Townsend, who served as a delegate alongside Bucher. Beside support for farm workers, she named support of public education and actions regarding welfare as examples "of where the NCC is in the 'healing society' versus 'avoiding society' debate," she said. "It's all part of a big discussion about engagement with the world, bringing Christ's healing to the world, because we can't just heal it ourselves." David Miller, pastor of West Richmond (Va.) Church of the Brethren, and Valentina Satvedi, pastor of South Bay Community Church of the Brethren in Redondo Beach, Calif., also served as Church of the Brethren delegates to the NCC for the years 2000-03.

Source: 11/19/2004 Newsline