El Salvador

By Beverly Bell - Upside Down World, August 18, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Excerpts from an interview with Miguel Ramirez, National Coordinator of the Organic Agriculture Movement of El Salvador.

"We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it as a tool to transform farmers' social and economic conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that oppresses farmers.

We in the Organic Agriculture Movement see the soil as Mother Earth, a living organism, which gives birth to all kinds of life. Mother Earth is agonizing, and needs to be rescued. Even a new small plot of land under organic management is part of the effort to revive her.

We now have around 3,700 small local producers who are educated and working on organic agriculture in El Salvador. We're just about one percent of all small producers, but 15 or 20 years ago we had no organic agriculture.

Our territory is made up of just 20,000 square kilometers, with 70 percent of the territory dedicated to agriculture. The challenge is to keep winning over new farmer families that will re-convert to organic farming and liberate the land.

For 60 years, Salvadoran peasants have been marginalized and impoverished by the agro-industrial model [chemically dependent, large-scale, corporate-controlled agribusiness], which is based on resource and human exploitation. Today, peasants in El Salvador, as throughout Latin America, are living in a system of semi-slavery and are subjected to expensive and toxic technology that doesn't belong to them.

People are facing some very serious health problems. Prolonged exposure to pesticides and other toxins in our food is causing low renal function, cancer, and diabetes.

Another problem we face as a result of this system of production is the extreme degradation of our natural resources. El Salvador has the most soil degradation in all of Central America. Eighty percent of our land is degraded and 99 percent of our rivers are contaminated.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, April 1, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Deepwater Horizon still creating an environment of fear and intimidation five years on - By Charles Digges, Bellona.Org, March 27, 2015
• How Much Is Your Arm Worth? Depends On Where You Work; Each state determines its own workers’ compensation benefits, which means workers in neighboring states can end up with dramatically different compensation for identical injuries - Michael Grabell, ProPublica, and Howard Berkes, NPR, March 5, 2015

Bread and Roses:

• Baja Labor Leaders Learned Tactics from Their Efforts in US - By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2015
• Banana Workers’ Strike Highlights Abuses by Corporations in Costa Rica - Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes, TierraAmerica, March 18, 2015
• Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and Why Unions are Needed     - By Duane E. Campbell, Talking Union, March 23, 2015
• El Salvador Farmers Successfully Defy Monsanto - By Dahr Jamail, TruthOut, March 23, 2015
• Father of Mexican worker killed in farm accident attends vigil in Albion; Daniel Larios Hernandez seeks better working and living conditions for migrant workers - By Tom Rivers, Orleans Hub, March 20, 2015; related [video]
• Mexican farmworkers strike over low wages, blocking harvest -  By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times, March 20, 2015
• Mexico: Labor Rebellion in San Quintín; Farmworkers on Strike - By Erin Gallagher, Revolution News, March 30, 2015
• Occupy agriculture! Polish farmers sit in for land and freedom - By Justin Rose, The Ecologist, March 19, 2015
• Storytelling Spotlight: Farm Worker Oscar Otzoy - By Megan Campbell, Why Hunger, March 25, 2015
• Thousands of Mexican farmworkers march 15 miles as strike talks continue - Staff, Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2015
• Why Mexico’s Farmworkers Who Harvest Our Food Are on Strike - By Sonali Kolhatkar, TruthDig, March 26, 2015
• Your Seafood may be Caught by Slaves - By Myriam Fallon, Greenpeace Blogs, March 26, 2015 [related] Major US Tuna Brands Connected to Slavery at Sea and Human Rights Abuses - By John Hocevar, Greenpeace Blogs, March 26, 2015

USW Refinery Strike:

• Conservationists Help Workers Strike for Refinery Safety - By Steve Curwood, Living On Earth, March 20, 2015
• East Bay Residents Push for Tougher Refinery Regulations - By Jean Tepperman, East Bay Express, March 23, 2015
• Refinery Strikers Protest at Chicago BP HQ [video] - By LaborBeat, YouTube, March 24, 2015
• Letter to Marathon Management Regarding Texas City Memorial - By Walter E. ‘Sonny’ Sanders, United Steelworkers, March 24, 2015
• Tesoro Carson Strike 2015 [video] - By USW Local 675, YouTube, March 24, 2015
• Tesoro union employees returning to work - By Staff, Argus Media, March 25, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Fracking Town’s Desperate Laid-off Workers: ‘They Don’t Tell You It’s All a Lie’; The boom and bust in North Dakota has trapped people there, with little hope of work or escape - By Evelyn Nieves, Alternet, March 28, 2015
• GE expands job cuts at Lufkin oil unit to 575 from 330 - By Ankit Ajmera, Reuters, March 25, 2015
• Low oil prices force 2 Oklahoma companies to cut jobs - Associated Press, March 27, 2015
• North American Railroads Caught by Speed of Crude-Oil Collapse - By Thomas Black, Bloomberg, March 26, 2015
• North Dakota oil rig count drops below 100 - Associated Press, March 25, 2015
• Rigzone: Layoffs more likely than hiring - By Jennifer Hiller, FuelFix, March 25, 2015
• Shell cuts staff numbers in North Sea operations - Associated Press, March 26, 2015

Just Transition:

• Climate action and resource workers: Discussing 'just transition' with Karen Cooling - By Lindsey Bertrand, Rabble.Ca, March 31, 2015
• The fight for $15 is the fight for a livable planet - By Phil Aroneanu, 350.org, March 30, 2015
• San Diego Labor Goes Green: New Environmental Caucus Formed - By Jim Miller, San Diego Free Press, February 2, 2015

1267-Watch:

• Martinez Environmental Group Adopts Resolution In Opposition to Single Employee Train Crews and on Train Crew Fatigue - By Martinez Environmental Group, March 30, 2015
• ONTC and union reach five-year deal - By Jennifer Hamilton-McCharles, The Nugget, March 23, 2015
• Washington Fire Chiefs Demand Transparency on Crude Oil Trains - By Sydney Brownstone, The Stranger, March 25, 2015

Health and Safety:

• Adjournment of Coroner’s Inquest into Lakeland Mills Explosion to consider “new evidence” only furthers need for a public inquiry - By Stephen Hunt and Brad West, United Steelworkers, March 25, 2015
• Latest numbers suggest unionized coal mines safer, more productive than nonunion operations - By Taylor Kuykendall and Hira Fawad, SNL, March 30, 2015
• Monsanto’s Roundup: Most Popular Weed Killer in U.S.; ‘Probably’ Causes Cancer, WHO Report Says - By Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch, March 23, 2015

Other News:

• Activists Shape Oakland Coliseum Area Plan; a large coalition of activist groups pushed successfully for affordable housing goals, local hiring, and environmental mitigations - By Jean Tepperman, East Bay Express, March 18, 2015
• Copper up, FCX down as workers halt production at Grasberg - By editor, Mining.Com, March 20, 2015
• Oil workers in West Texas and New Mexico were underpaid millions, Labor Department says - Associated Press, March 30, 2015
• Shell Oilsands Workers To Carry Electronic Trackers On The Job - By Cameron Langford, CBC.ca, March 19, 2015
• Union Organizer Wants to ID Snoops - By Cameron Langford, Courthouse News Service, March 26, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC