After a two-year organizing campaign, IUF affiliate Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), with support from the Campaign for Migrant Worker Justice (CMWJ), has reached an historic collective bargaining agreement with Battleboro Produce in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA. The agreement covers the workers at an agricultural packing shed where most workers are migrant women packing sweet potatoes for the US and European markets.
FLOC has already won a collective agreement covering farmworkers who harvest the produce that ends up at Battleboro Produce; the collective agreement for packing shed workers builds on FLOC’s longstanding work to organize in supply chains.
The union and the employer reached an agreement which includes:
- An 8% wage increase
- Guaranteed overtime pay
- Bereavement pay
- Paid leave for union business
FLOC President Baldemar Velásquez stated, “This collective bargaining agreement is a case study of our proven organizing strategy that begins with signing up associate members to be part of our community union, then evolving them into an organizing committee. We will continue to fight and organize until all achieve their right to self-determination, starting with those who are the most vulnerable in the agricultural industry!”
