Justice for Laborers: Dolores Huerta Endorses Farmworkers’ Lawsuit against New Mexico

While this month’s celebration of Labor Day marks the end of summer, agricultural workers still struggle for justice in their labor. With the endorsement of Dolores Huerta, who continues the work of Cesar Chavez, they filed suit against the state of New Mexico last month for the right to receive workers’ compensation.

Eleven thousand farm and ranch employees in New Mexico currently don’t receive workers’ compensation because their employers don’t have to provide it. The farmworkers’ suit, as represented by the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, claims that that exemption violates the state constitution’s clauses for equal protection and inherent rights.

Farm and ranch laborers annual salaries are generally between $7,000 and $18,000. Yet their occupation puts them at high risk for injury.

Farm and ranch groups have opposed past efforts to get rid of the exemption, saying workers’ compensation would cost too much and would threaten businesses. The farmworkers say it would cost less than 1.2% of the $821 Million profit the industry earned in 2007.

Huerta, a cofounder of the United Farmworkers, is disappointed in her home state of New Mexico. The Albuquerque Journal quotes Huerta: “In California, we got workers’ compensation in 1957. It shows that we need to catch up a little bit here in New Mexico. It’s time that the people who feed us, the people who put the food on our plate every day, get the justice that they deserve.”

[Author's note: The Sin Fronteras Organizing Project, with whom my husband and I volunteer, is one of the organizations filing this lawsuit.]

For more information:

Albuquerque Journal, “Farmhands Suing State: Group Wants Workers’ Compensation Rights” by Juan Carlos Rodriguez, August 26, 2009.

Fact Sheet: Amend the NM Workers’ Compensation Act to Cover Farm and Ranch Workers

New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty project website: Including Agricultural Workers into the Manditory Worker’s Compensation System

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