ST. LOUIS, MO. – Baldemar Velasquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), spoke at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 Union Hall here Oct. 18.

Valasquez, a well-known advocate of immigrant rights, told the trade unionsts that “smuggling cheap immigrant labor into the United States [is a] “multi million-dollar industry.”

Currently there are more than eight million undocumented immigrant workers in the United States. They have no legal bargaining power and are unable to form unions.

“Undocumented immigrant workers are forced into terrible working conditions” – usually in agriculture, Valasquez said.

He encouraged his audience to “make a difference in the people’s lives who handle the food we feed our children.” One way to do this is to boycott Mt. Olive Pickle Co products, he said.

At Mt. Olive’s North Carolina headquarters, more than 3,000 farm workers, mostly Latino immigrants, have decided to join FLOC. The CEO of Mt. Olive, William Bryan, has refused to recognize the union.

Mt. Olive workers are paid an average of $1.80 per 100 pounds harvested. Cucumber workers in Ohio, represented by FLOC, make up to $5.80 per 100 pounds.

Todd Britt, director of the eastern district office of Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.), said, “We need to realize the importance of working families, immigrant working families, to our economy.”

Virginia Nesmith, executive director of the National Farm Worker Ministry, said, “We know what the conditions of immigrant farm workers are. We also know what a union can do for those workers.”