On July 2, I joined my friend, Joe Teehan, on his daily progressive radio talk show in Bellingham (KBAI-AM 930) to talk about the upcoming Farmworkers Third Annual March for a Contract, 7/11, Burlington, WA and debut my song, “Ballad of Sakuma Farms”, a narrative of the three-year-old struggle.
The previous day, Sakuma had implemented a new wage formula that they hailed as an increase for the workers and, which, was dutifully trumpeted to the media and legislature as a major increase in worker compensation. This was quickly disproven by the workers who demonstrated it to be an actual decrease.
In addition, Sakuma dispatched the workers into the fields in small staggered groups, isolating the union and non-union folks from each other. The tactic, designed to keep the non-union folks from hearing the union side, fooled no one and all 200 walked off the job in protest.
So, my appearance on Joe’s show the next day provided an opportunity niot only to publicize the march…but to provide a live cell phone update from the scene by Rosalinda Guillen, Executive Director of Community To Community Development (C2C) http://foodjustice.org. Rosalinda is one of my labor and cultural heroes, a remarkable activist, organizer, and communicator.
Check out the show.
http://930kbai.com/the-joe-show/the-joe-show-for-7215/
And join the March!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1608111789460551/
Gary Kanter 
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