May 1, 2017
To all the workers of the world, we, the South Bay Filipin@ Progressive Network stands here in solidarity with you. We are here to stand in solidarity with our comrades from San Quentin, California who are being hired by Driscoll’s, yes, the berries you see in Safeway and Costco. Those who pick the berries we eat for $7 a day. Those women workers who are forced to return to the field one day after giving birth. Who have no restrooms with running water on the Driscoll farms in Washington State and out here in Watsonville. As a simple action to aid our comrades, boycott Driscoll berries.
We stand with highest respects for the migrant mothers who left their children behind in the Philippines, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and any other country where mothers have to leave because life is just too difficult back home. We are here with domestic workers, farm laborers, construction workers, care givers, all workers because you should not have to feel alone if your employer isn’t paying you right or is abusing you. We are here and we open our arms to y’all as a community.
But as much as we need to fight for the workers on this side of the border, we also need to be paying attention to what’s going on back home. American corporations are creating immigrants. They have such a sharp scope on migrant workers but they need to turn around and regulate themselves.
100 million people in Mexico. 42.5% of those 100 million live on $2 a day. It’s time to regulate the minimum wage on American-owned overseas jobs. We need to fight for a world where mothers don’t need to decide whether to leave their children to work, or to stay close and starve as a family. In Mexico and Central America, children risk dying on the train of death just to find out whether their moms still love them.
In the Philippines, those islands all the way across the ocean, migrant mothers’ only hope of seeing their child back home is via Skype. Forced to migrate to leave their families and love ones because of the poverty, corruption, landlessness and lack national industrialization. It’s a must that we unite and build a migrant and workers movement to address the root cause of the issues we face and break the chains of exploitation and suffering of our people and the people around the world.
In Solidarity,
L.E.A.D Filipino
Pilipino Association of Workers & Immigrants
Anakbayan Silicon Valley
FANHS
