Teresa Romero (Mexico City, 74 years old) says she does her job standing on the shoulders of giants. She doesn’t exaggerate. Since 2018, she has chaired the United Farm Workers (UFW), the union founded more than 60 years ago by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, the emblematic Chicano leaders of farmers. Raised in Guadalajara in a family whose father was a manufacturer of tortilla-making machinery and a mother dedicated to the home, she came to the San Fernando Valley, California, in the seventies. A few years later she was a beneficiary of the amnesty that Ronald Reagan granted to millions of irregular immigrants, becoming the last president of the United States to reach out to a sector that today is vilified and persecuted.
This experience has given Romero a different perspective. She is the first immigrant and the first Latina to head a national union. She began as an assistant to the president, Arturo Rodríguez, but over the years she became secretary and treasurer, the number two of the organization based in California, the main agricultural state in the country.
In his time leading the UFW, Romero has made the issue of immigration reform a priority. He has gotten the State to relax the rules so that farmers can unionize. His latest crusade, spanning decades, is to provide protections to thousands of people working outdoors in extreme heat. The proposal is rejected by several Republican politicians, who refuse to give day laborers, most of them undocumented immigrants, access to clean water to drink in the fields and 10-minute breaks.
Her great influence within a fundamental political sector has led her to be a powerful character. Last month, Romero received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden, the highest civilian honor in the country. The award was presented to him at the White House along with a generation of politicians such as Michael Bloomberg, Senator Elizabeth Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi, among others. By receiving it, she has closed a circle. César Chávez was honored posthumously by Bill Clinton in 1994.
Ask. How is it possible that farm workers in the United States continue to die?
Answer. I wish I had the right answer. The majority of farm workers in this country are immigrants and many of them, a large majority, are undocumented. Many times they do not make their voices heard for fear of being fired or deported. So they put up with a lot of things. That’s why when we passed our law in California, lives were saved. And now we want to do it at the federal level.
Q. There are very strong agricultural states that resist this law.
R. Yes, that is why we do not want to make it a reform of the States. It should not be up to each State whether a worker lives or dies. Especially with the weather conditions, which are changing so much. That is why we are doing it at the federal level, to be able to protect workers not only who are dedicated to agriculture, but also those who work outdoors and who are exposed to heat. Republicans are not interested in these types of protections, but we will continue to fight.
Q. The most notable case is that of Florida, where the governor prohibited this type of protection. What are we facing? Is it an anti-union or anti-immigrant issue?
R. Both. As I mentioned before, the majority of workers are immigrants. Many of them undocumented. The governor thinks, in his way of seeing life, that they are not important. It is disgusting that a governor does not consider these lives. They put food on our table every day. When they are working crouched all day in the fields in high temperatures, they don’t wonder if their work is going to benefit a Republican or a Democrat. They continue to do their job so we can all eat.
Q. He says this is not the political time to approve this type of legislation. When would it be in a country so divided?
R. Our bill has been introduced, the problem that exists is that the person who decides which ones are put to a vote in Congress is a Republican spokesperson.
Q. Is unionism experiencing a great moment in USA? Couldn’t that give strength to the cause?
R. Yes, definitely. We have to imagine the life of a peasant worker, who gets up early in the morning because they have to study or do things with his children. They go, they work eight, ten hours a day, they come back tired, especially during the hot season. But they also want to have a family. The people who sit and watch the news know that we have the support of the president. There is no immigration reform, so right now the only way these workers can be protected is through the union. So someone has their back, they have a voice, they have protection. Otherwise, they have nothing.
Q. Before coming to the UFW, you had a construction company. What do you say to employers who are anti-union?
R. Many people say that as entrepreneurs they create hundreds and thousands of jobs and that if it were not for them there would be no work. What I always tell them is to see it from the other side. If they didn’t have their workers, their company wouldn’t exist. What we have to do is treat them with dignity, with respect and pay them fairly. And unfortunately here in the United States that does not happen in agriculture.
Q. You are running a campaign that warns that the danger is more than heat stroke. There are silent epidemics linked to high temperatures.
R. Is very difficult for them to sit and think about that when they are earning the minimum and have to support their family and do not want to lose their job. It is the sacrifice they make every day. They are willing to endure a lot. And when they are threatened and intimidated that they are going to be fired, that if they talk to the union they are going to be fired, it is something very difficult to combat. The workers cannot endure another summer, two summers or three more summers while we go State by State to save their lives. We need those protections at the federal level and that is why we are demanding them.
Q. How long was this fight in California?
R. The first regulations that existed were in 2008, when a young woman died from the heat. Then we started to put more pressure and we were able to reinforce the protections, but we should not wait until people die. What we say here in the union is that the laws on the books are not the laws in the fields. Because? Because there is no one there. We need a federal agency with sufficient resources to ensure that these measures are being implemented.
Q. You recently received the Medal of Freedom from President Biden. What did that mean to you?
R. It means a lot. It was a great honor, but the reason I was there is because of the people I serve. They are the ones who always feel invisible. That the consumer does not see them, the ranchers and the employers do not see them. Neither do the authorities. That day we were able to demonstrate that farmers are seen at the highest levels. We are trying to elevate the way they are appreciated.
Q. During the pandemic these workers were essential because they did not stop, but years later a battle still has to be fought for basic rights.
R. When something really had to be done, which was to make the vaccine available to them, masks, protection and information, we had to do it. We had the advantage of having people who support the farmers and we received donations of thousands of masks, which we distributed among workers in California, Oregon and Washington. But there were problems because many were not covered because they were undocumented. Not only do they have to be seen as essential workers, they have to be treated as such.
Q. She is the first immigrant to head a national union. Do you have a different task compared to others in the US labor movement?
R. The task is the same, trying to improve the lives of the people we represent. The fact that I am a migrant gives me a more direct way of understanding the challenges they face every day. I don’t have to imagine what they are thinking or suffering. When I hear people say, “I can’t go see my mom, who I haven’t seen in 20 years.” I understand them on a different level.
Q. Is there concern among your colleagues about what may happen after the November elections?
R. We have that caution, fear, concern at any level. Even immigrants who work in the fields or not, who do not have a union, who work in another industry, have that fear. what is going to happen? The fact that they have an accent when speaking English, that their skin is brown or black. That fear exists. Everyone, not just migrants, must be aware of what we can lose.
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