Cesar Chavez-founded UFW backs Kerry,
citing ‘shared vision’ of helping Latinos ‘achieve the decent life America
promises’
United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez issued the following
statement from the union’s headquarters in Keene, Calif. near Bakersfield
after the Cesar Chavez-founded UFW endorsed Sen. John F. Kerry for President:
More than three and a half decades after Cesar Chavez embraced Robert
F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign, the United Farm Workers proudly
supports Senator John Kerry for President because he shares our vision
of helping Latinos and all people achieve the decent life America promises
those who work hard for a living.
Farm workers are among the hardest-working, tax-paying workers in our
country. They perform some of the hardest and most important labor in our
nation: feeding America and much of the world. Senator Kerry shares
our commitment to raising the minimum wage, providing affordable health
care for everyone and offering our children the best quality public education.
We trust Senator Kerry because of his long history with us, from participating
in the grape boycott during the mid-1970s to supporting the right of California
strawberry workers to organize in the late 1990s.
Most recently, we have worked with Senator Kerry on bipartisan legislation
dealing fairly with the immigration dilemma facing immigrant workers, their
families and employers—the AgJobs bill, S. 1645, that John Kerry co-sponsors
along with 50 other U.S. senators from both parties. It is far more meaningful
than the empty rhetoric of the immigration plan President Bush proposed
in January.
Senator Kerry represents the hope that Latinos and other Americans
can once again have a government that truly acts on behalf of working people.