OUR PROGRAMS

In order to fulfill our mission of enabling human rights and self-determination for agricultural and immigrant workers, CMWJ has developed the following programs:

Community Organizing: CMWJ builds a base of migrant workers and empowers them to achieve self-determination and human rights through organizing themselves locally, nationally, and internationally to promote the rights and opportunities for themselves and their families.
Education: CMWJ develops the knowledge and skills to enable migrant workers to be active participants in collective decisions regarding their job conditions and compensation, and to promote their rights on the job site and in the community. We also utilize popular education to build popular understanding and support for the human rights of migrant workers.
Community Services: CMWJ provides a number of community services to help support migrant workers in meeting social and economic challenges, particularly where existing social services are not adequate in meeting their needs.
Research: CMWJ initiates and cooperates in research activities to better understand the causes of migrant worker conditions, and applies these understandings in social changes to achieve their rights and their effective functioning as a part of the larger society.
Advocacy: CMWJ initiates public advocacy to support the rights of migrant workers and to promote social changes that improve their effective functioning as a part of the larger society. We also build and mobilize broad based community support for migrant worker justice.

Current Projects

CMWJ organizes a number of projects to implement these programs, most of which include several areas.

Migrant Worker Empowerment. This project develops migrant workers' abilities to achieve basic rights. Through the use of popular education methods, home meetings and camp educational sessions, migrant workers receive and share information and training on basic rights, health and safety, conflict resolution, pesticides, organizing skills, immigration, and other topics of concern to the workers. Outcomes of the workers' enhanced capacity is seen in the hundreds of incidents resolved every summer by workers and their Camp Representatives.
"We learned that now the grower has to pay us for every job we do on the farm", says Maria. "Before, we used to do pre-harvest work for free, we would make money only on what we picked. Now we not only have the information but know how to claim the hourly wages we deserve."
Transnational Worker Education. This CMWJ project increases the capacity of agricultural "guest workers" in Mexico coming to work as farmworkers in the U.S. with H2A visas to defend and improve their human and labor rights. Abuses experienced by these "guest workers" include both extortion in the recruitment system in Mexico and exploitation in the U.S.
The CMWJ partner in Mexico, the Foro Laboral Obreros Campesinos, provides key education to workers going to the U.S about their labor rights in both countries, the recruitment process, and the agricultural system in the U.S. Training also includes leadership development and organizing skills for workers both in Mexico and the USA. Through this project, H2A workers have made fundamental changes in their situation, including the elimination of recruitment and transportation fees, which have saved already more than $3 million dollars a year to the 8,000 guestworkers coming to do farm work in North Carolina.
Leadership Development. This project builds leadership to effectively guide the achievement of rights and opportunities of the migrant community. The project targets worker representatives and committee members elected by their peers, to provide a deeper level of training and capacity building. Worker leaders learn and develop communication and conflict resolution skills, organizing, and management skills.
Alejandro, one of our leaders, says: "We received training on no-match letters and immigration rights and the CMWJ staff taught us how to develop a training packet to replicate the training for the rest of our community. We just did it last Sunday and it was very successful. I did not know I could do something like this!."
Immigrant Rights. The project seeks to achieve full human, civil, and working rights of all immigrants, legal residency for immigrants living and working in the United States and their families, and an ongoing process to ensure the rights for migrant flows. These objectives are pursued by organizing the immigrant community to have their own voice in all areas of their lives, immigrant integration, public education about the causes and processes in immigration, organizing popular support networks with faith, labor, and community groups for immigrant rights, and popular advocacy to call for social changes that ensure the human rights of immigrants. Program activities include Know Your Rights trainings, local advocacy and advocacy trips to the US Congress in Washington DC, high impact actions and media events.
Through testimony of a program participant: "It was amazing for me to speak to a member of Congress about the pain of families who suffered a deportation. It took my fear away."
Worker Centers. CMWJ Worker Centers in Ohio and North Carolina provide practical training, advocacy representation, and other services to local migrant workers and recent immigrants. Trainings and educational opportunities include financial literacy classes; English as a Second Language; computer literacy classes; know your rights and immigrant rights training. Services include a Legal Clinic which provides free assistance on Workers Compensation and other legal issues; translations; job search assistance; referrals to social service programs; and, in the Toledo center, health benefits for local residents in collaboration with Care Net of Toledo. In addition, the centers represent workers in labor related disputes, such as recovering lost wages, claims on wages not paid, and other on-the-job problems.
A testimony on a recent case handled by the Center in Toledo says: "My kid was hit by a police officer at the school and the Principal wanted to sweep the issue under the rug. I called the worker center and they forced the school to consider matters seriously. It's good they see we are not alone, we have representation."
Mobile Health Clinic. This project provides health care to migrant workers in northwest Ohio in collaboration with St. Charles Hospital. A fully equipped medical van and a group of volunteer doctors and nurses from local area hospitals and health agencies visit agricultural migrant labor camps during the summer harvest season to provide basic medical services to workers who otherwise would do not receive health care. The mobile clinic offers physicals, blood sugar tests, aids testing, primary care, and eye exams.
"I did not know I was diabetic," says Ramon. "I never go to a doctor because I don't have insurance. This test probably saved my life. Now the doctors here taught me how to take care of my health problem and I can see them again next summer when I come to the harvest."

Facilities

To support our programs and projects, CMWJ operates and manages facilities in Toledo Ohio, Dudley NC, and Monterrey Mexico for our Workers Centers and local community activities. Upkeep of facilities, utilities, basic services like telephones and internet connections, and other overhead costs are included with these facilities. We also provide related space and equipment for our various activities. In addition, we rent some available space and equipment to the Farm Labor Organizing Committee AFL-CIO as appropriate for its operations.