Well it seems that those ties with the UFW under current President Arturo Rodriguez aren’t as strong as they were back in the day when Cesar Chavez was in charge, as Governor Brown vetoed a bill that would have made it easier for farm laborers to organize.

According to The Los Angeles Times:

“The proposal has been the top legislative goal for years for the United Farm Workers, whose founder, Cesar Chavez, had strong ties to Brown. It would have allowed the union to bargain for employees without holding an election — by simply collecting signatures from a majority of workers on cards saying they wanted representation.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed similar measures four times during his seven years in office. Supporters of the latest bill had been hopeful that Brown, a Democrat who often spoke of his relationship with Chavez during his gubernatorial campaign last year, would approve it.

In his veto message Tuesday, Brown cited his work with the union 36 years ago.

“I am not yet convinced that the far-reaching provisions of this bill … are justified,” Brown wrote.

Union leaders reacted angrily.

“To us it’s a real clear decision,” UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said. “This governor has decided to side with the rich against the powerless.”"

In many ways, I’m not too surprised that Brown vetoed this bill given the anti-union sentiment sweeping the country. And the influence of the UFW has diminished in recent years, and some even see that enterprise (UFW and its related organizations) as a vehicle to profit the Chavez family. However, I do think that if this bill is revised, the Governor may eventually sign it or something like it. Brown waited until the last minute to issue the veto, and the pressure was on so he clearly was weighing his options.

• In 2010, Latinos represented 15% of the workforce.
• Latinos who are working are less likely to have a college degree than their white and African-American counterparts.
• 8/10 Hispanics work in the private sector.
• The average weekly wage for Hispanic men is $560 and for Hispanic women is $508.
• 6.3% of Hispanics are self-employed, and Hispanic owned businesses are among the fastest growing.
• The average unemployment for Hispanics was 12.5% in 2010 — it declined slightly in February to 11.6%.

Secretary Solis also said that the Department of Labor (DOL) is working to coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enforce work and labor rules. She also stressed that more definitely needs to be done to get Latinos back to work and to educate our young people in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math), as jobs in these sectors are higher paying.

Secretary Solis also announced an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with DHS that would stop ICE from investigating work sites where DOL already has an open investigation. This will allow DOL to inform ICE about the information that it has and will ensure that ICE doesn’t misrepresent itself and say that it is acting in a “labor” capacity. The goal of this MOU is to be more efficient and to cut down on duplication efforts between both agencies.

Because the MOU involved DHS, some questions about immigration reform were brought up on the call, and Cecilia Muñoz reiterated that President Obama will enforce current immigration laws and just because the immigration system is broken that he will not choose to selectively enforce immigration laws. Muñoz did acknowledge that with a population of 10-11 million undocumented people that there will be some unfortunate situations where families do get separated, but this is the reason why the administration is pushing for a legislative solution to the problem.

Overall, this call was informative and refreshing because Secretary Solis talked about what she was scheduled or expected to speak about, unlike my other interaction with a certain Latino elected official earlier this week. It is unfortunate that the White House is seemingly putting the immigration reform charge back in the Congress, which is especially challenging in this climate, but this has been the pattern with the Obama White House — letting Congress take the initial stab at any huge policy change. If you think back to the Bush days, President Bush did a lot by running around the Congress and avoiding oversight.

In New York City, the United of Federation of Teachers (UFT) has another fight on its hands. On January 10, a judge denied the United Federation of Teachers request to block the release of Teacher Data Reports under the Freedom of Information Act. The union’s response has been expected, appeal the ruling and keep the legal challenge going. This is a short sighted strategy however, and if the union really wants to prevent the reputation of teachers from being sullied it must change its tactics and adopt of more teacher-centered and less lawyer-centered approach.

First, the union should end all legal challenges to the release of the reports. As the lawsuit drags on, many New Yorkers are beginning to see the actions as work of a core group of out of touch misanthropes that are attempting to use America’s notoriously Byzantine courts as a way to short change America’s children. The fact is, in all likelihood the union will lose the appeal, and the reports will be released anyway.

Second, with money saved from ending all legal challenges, a publicity campaign must be undertaken. A strategic and carefully crafted media blitz would raise awareness of the fact that parents and teachers have much in common, in terms of hopes for their children. For example, parents and teachers both desire smaller class size, increased funding for schools, more resources inside of the classroom and less money wasted on outside contractors.

Finally, the union itself must make a greater move to mobilize its members. Instead of simply sending us a drab magazine once a year, the union must make an effort to keep teachers abreast of ways to make themselves, and the common goals they share with parents, heard to others. Teachers should be encouraged to write letters to congressmen, mail comments to newspapers, or comment on blogs. I am a regular contributor for LatinoPoliticsBlog.com, but my union had nothing to do with me writing these articles. All my union has done for mobilization has been to send me a graying newspaper once a week with the latest school our leader has visited.

Simple steps centering on the needs of parents and teachers must be taken in order to prevent our union from being seen as a reactive group of fools opposed to any sort of progress. By ending a legal challenge that is doomed to failure, a more assertive union can aggressively challenge the natural advantage – money and the bully pulpit – enjoyed by the anti-teacher Mayor Bloomberg and public schools chancellor Cathie Black.

Jude Soto has been a teacher in a low-income public high school in New York City since 2004. A native New Yorker, Soto has an M.A. in history fromBrooklyn College. Outside of the academic world, his pursuits include traveling, weightlifting, and long distance running.

This piece was inspired by a comment on my last blog post about abolishing Chicano Studies departments because “they doom aspiring minorities to a lifetime of poverty.” It reminded of the time-honored American tradition of emphasizing the necessity and superiority of certain fields over others. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t slam the sciences or business while the line frowning upon ethnic studies goes down the street and around the corner. This often times is exemplified by employers who see a resume come across their desk with Women’s Studies or Latino Studies at the top, causing the following Q&A: “What exactly did this person learn? What did they do? I bet they learned to hate men (Women’s Studies) or white people (ethnic studies).”

These questions come up because a good number of people don’t know the content of these fields and subsequently disregard them. But those answers couldn’t be farther from the truth. When it comes to practical applicability, ignoring certain fields should only be acceptable when applying for a job that requires a particular specialization (such as nursing, engineering, a Master’s degree, etc). Otherwise, you can acquire the same skills in Chicano Studies that you can in almost any other field. The key is what you do out of the classroom through internships, research, and extracurricular pursuits, not one’s major. Thus, the importance of fields such as Chicano Studies lies in challenging how we think, not in being a gateway to employment.

Now, we can all agree that “minority issues,” throughout time, have been relegated to the doldrums of academia. American students get one version of history, and it’s not the one that includes the contributions of Latinos dating back to the Revolutionary War. For example, readings for a class I took this semester touched on the Bracero Program, shockingly revealing that my colleagues didn’t know about it, or its economic significance to American agriculture during and immediately after World War 2. And they certainly didn’t know its effect on US-Mexico policy to this day. Most of my colleagues taking the class were not Latino, meaning they were (on the surface) immersing themselves in a curriculum that was not personally relevant. The class shed light on issues relating to race, immigration law, labor relations, foreign policy, and employment discrimination. Broad topics, in a broad field, that got everyone to reflect on the legal and political mechanisms that promulgate Latino disempowerment.

Enter my definition of an effective field of study: one that causes people to spend time in thought, to question what they read, and ultimately be independent thinkers. In my experience, fields such as Latino Studies are among the best at creating such ability.  At their core, these departments offer exposure to areas such as law, history, policy, race relations, and politics. They’re fully capable of fostering independent analysis and are highly effective at challenging the preconceived notions of students. As our country increasingly grows fixated with taking information at face value, they’re needed now more than ever.

Let us use the death of investigative reporting to illustrate this point. The news has become stories on polls, causing a race to the bottom for some in political awareness, and necessitating the need for critical thought. This past election we saw campaign ads in New Orleans with a fence of illegal aliens crossing the border cause people to actually think New Orleans has such a fence, and subsequently feel it’s acceptable to ignore constitutional civil liberties, stop minorities in the street, and ask for identification. People don’t know how to interpret the news, specifically how to differentiate between current events, opinion, and garbage. When someone can’t take a principled stance on an issue, question different ideologies, and challenge their own belief systems, it’s a crisis. If people could do that, then they wouldn’t be surprised to learn Lou Dobbs, like countless other Americans, slammed illegal immigration while depending on it. I’m not saying ethnic studies departments solve any of this, they simply aid in fostering the ability to think critically, which this country desperately needs.

In closing, I would be remiss if I didn’t include a conversation I had with my Father before attending college. It went something like this: “Matt, you can study anything you want. As long as it leads to gainful employment.” My response was choosing a field I felt could segue into multiple professions: Communication. And as I near completion of my Master’s degree in Public Administration from Cornell, I am in a cohort with students whose undergraduate backgrounds include everything from Political Science to Women’s Studies to Philosophy. Our common link is the undergraduate research we conducted, fellowships we held, and leadership roles we took that enriched our academic experience. They highlight what a college degree really is: a piece of paper on the wall. As long as one pursues courses that teach them how to think critically while pursuing opportunities that maximize professional growth, they won’t be doomed to a life of poverty. That makes Chicano Studies OK in my book.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

In spite of the numerous protests against her appointment, this week Commissioner of the New York State Education Department, David Steiner, confirmed Cathie Black as Chancellor of New York City Public Schools. That sadness I am feeling as a school teacher, that my boss is someone who lacks a background in education and sent her children to ritzy private boarding schools in Connecticut, is buttressed by her record of latent approval of anti-labor tactics in Latin America.

For seventeen years Cathie Black served on the board of directors of Coca Cola, and while expanding into developing markets, the company also has been accused of some outrageous anti-union activity in Latin America. In 1997, Adolfo Jesus de Munera the union leader in a bottling plant in Barranquilla, Colombia was given death threats, forced to flee his house, fired by Coca Cola, and then found murdered. If one was to claim that this was an isolated incident or that Munera’s murder was carried out because of issues not related to his union activities, let it be known that seven other union leaders of at Coca Cola bottling plants in Colombia had also been murdered. Also, there is currently a lawsuit in place in Guatemala alleging the company gave the go ahead to “murder, attempted murder and rape as intimidate tactics against union leaders.” In a perfect world, a member of an organization that was complicit in the murder of innocent Latinos would be in jail right now, but this is not a perfect world, and Cathie Black is now the head of a school district that is nearly 40% Latino.

It might be suggested that Black knew nothing about these events, or that as a member of a multi-person board of directors Black should not be held responsible for the actions of an entire multinational corporation, but numerous reports suggest that Black was well aware of these incidents. While on the board of directors for Coca-Cola, Black voted against an independent investigation into the labor abuses in Colombia. The board also unanimously voted against opposing human rights abuses in China. The information was brought to light, debated, and put to vote, and time and again Cathie Black put profit ahead of humanity. To excuse Black is to excuse the very acts themselves.

With realizing that teachers are the focal point of a nationwide bipartisan campaign against public workers, and Black’s anti-labor status, it’s obvious why Michael Bloomberg picked her to run city schools. As a fellow media mogul, with noted union-busting tendencies, one can imagine Bloomberg skipping gingerly to his limousine when the idea dawned to appoint Black. I, however, am grumbling, and nervously waiting to see if Cathie Black will do to New York’s teachers what she did to Colombia’s workers.

Jude Soto has been a teacher in a low-income public high school in New York City since 2004. A native New Yorker, Soto has an M.A. in history from Brooklyn College. Outside of the academic world, his pursuits include traveling, weightlifting, and long distance running.

As 2011 approaches, let us take a moment to review 2000-2010 through a lens of Latino disempowerment. During this decade, our community has weathered firestorms ranging from anti-immigrant rhetoric, to financial extortion, to exclusion from the American educational system. Make no mistake, when politicians refuse to provide access to higher education for our community’s children, refuse to prevent mortgage lender usury, and refuse to fix a broken immigration system, they are disempowering Latinos. Through these instances, we have seen some leaders and politicians stand up on our behalf to advocate for reform. But as this Pew Hispanic Center study states we can’t even name them. This begs the questions: Who is our Cesar Chavez? Who is our Dolores Huerta?

At the height of the civil rights movement, Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez banded together to do the unthinkable. Protesting on behalf of migrant workers who contended with workplace conditions we cannot begin to fathom, they caused a national boycott of grapes and threatened the entire California agricultural industry. Risking their lives and abilities to provide for their families, they made sacrifices that caused actual change. These civil rights icons embraced the role of David and crushed Goliath in a way our community has not seen since. And as we move forward, they are the type of leaders we desperately need but do not have.

Simply stated, our community lacks national figureheads to spearhead reform efforts. While we rely on leaders such as NCLR’s Janet Murguía to beat the drums of change, she is restricted by the 501(c)(3) status of the National Council of La Raza. Murguía has been fighting for Latino rights for years and has done remarkable work. But she can only do so much when only bipartisan or even nonpartisan stances are requirements of her job description. Thus, all she and the NCLR can do is offer their resources and talents to policy discussions and court cases, and hope to empower their affiliates to create a grassroots level change like that of Chavez and Huerta.

Now, this is not to say the Latino community has no activists, because we do. One need look no further than LULAC, NCLR, and NALEO conferences to see leaders from across the country come together each year to speak on the issues we face and how we’re fighting them. But we need more than conference workshops and networking events. While noble, they are just not enough. We need a Dolores Huerta and a Cesar Chavez because they would have protested and called for wide-scale economic boycotts of Arizona that a) actually would have worked and b) forced the repeal of the racist legislation the Arizona legislature continues to promulgate. They would have challenged Goliath, and they would have won.

Unfortunately, we live in reality. And the reality is Gov. Jan Brewer was reelected. The reality is the DREAM Act remains a dream. The reality is immigration reform has not happened. And the reality is the Latino electorate, comprising the nation’s largest and fastest growing minority demographic, remains a sleeping giant. The status quo does not need to exist, but it lives on because we lack national advocates who are not afraid to, for lack of a better term, “throw down”. If this were the African-American community, leaders such as the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would inundate the airwaves with an onslaught of calls for reform that would force people to listen. Leaders in academia such as Dr. Cornell West and Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry would join in the debate, calling for change and garnering attention to their cause. While they join us in our struggle, we cannot ask them to fight this fight for us. We need our Cesar Chavez and our Dolores Huerta, and we need them now.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

Photo Credit: Cesar Chavez at the Delano UFW rally, June 1974 by Joel Levine.

On Tuesday, New York City school teachers traded the devil they know for the devil they don’t.  In a move that made me and my colleagues get up and dance, Joel Klein resigned as New York City’s schools chief to take up a position as an executive vice president of News Corp.  A minute later, in a move that made me and my colleagues sit back down and sulk, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that another businessperson with no education or classroom experience, Cathie Black, will be the new chancellor.  Once again, dollars, not children, motivated Bloomberg’s decision.

Cathie Black is about as qualified to lead city public schools as Jared, the Subway guy.  In what almost seems to be a requirement under the Bloomberg administration, the millionaire magazine publisher never taught a day in her life.  Personally, though, I happily await Mrs. Black’s tenure.  I look forward to reading rhetoric in the newspaper about how my coworkers and I are lazy, drains on society, from someone who made sure USA Today was published on time.  I am looking forward to contract negotiations and listening to an elitist, whose children by the way attended pricey Connecticut boarding schools, claim that my salary is too high. I am also looking forward to seeing how blind New Yorkers can be to think that it’s anything other than cronyism and union busting that motivated Bloomberg’s decision.

Here are some highlights from yesterday:

And Jerry Brown’s money quote in responding to Whitman’s allegations that he was sacrificing the housekeeper at the altar of his political ambitions was pretty strong and forceful:

“Don’t run for governor if you can’t stand up on your own two feet and say, ‘Hey I made a mistake,’” Brown said in a moment fraught with tension as the two candidates, neck-and-neck in the polls, turned away from the audience and faced each other directly. “You have blamed her, blamed me, blamed the left, blamed the unions. But you don’t take accountability.”

Finally, in response to the Whitman-housemaid fiasco, the people at SEIU made the following Spanish language ad:

What are your thoughts? My sense is that the Whitman ship is sinking, and even the hardline, more conservative immigration groups are calling for her to stand trial for hiring the undocumented housekeeper.

And finally, I do think that the housekeeper, Nicky Diaz, should have picked a different lawyer. Gloria Allred seems to relish in this kind of drama, which make her motives seem a bit suspect.

Randy Parraz entered the Democratic race in late April challenging the establishment candidate Rodney Glassman right after SB 1070 was passed. Parraz has a history in community organizing, working in labor and civil rights. He assisted in establishing the National Strawberry Commission for Workers Rights for strawberry pickers and was recently the Arizona State Director for the National AFL-CIO.

The Arizona Bilingual Magazine has a pretty comprehensive biography of Randy Parraz in its July issue. One point that I think is compelling about Parraz is that he has the academic credentials to go toe to toe with the establishment pols. Worth noting:

“Who is Randy Parraz? The quick answer to this question is that Parraz is the real deal, a civil and labor rights activist who has a proven record of fighting for our community.

There’s something about making your mama proud, about seeing her filled with pride after all her hard work for your future pays off at your college graduation. Randy graduated not just once, but three times from the nation’s top universities!

After completing his undergraduate work at UC Berkeley, Randy went to get his law degree from one of the most prestigious law schools in the nation, the Boalt Hall School of Law at Berkeley. As if this wasn’t enough, Randy then attended and graduated from the nation’s top school, Harvard University, with a Masters degree from the John F.Kennedy School of Government.

It was at Harvard that Randy Parraz first met Cesar Chavez, and little did he know how much his future work would continue what Chavez had started. Even though a world of wealth awaited someone with such a distinguished educational background, with degrees from both Berkeley and Harvard, Randy decided to use his knowledge to fight for justice for the hard-working American.”

In recent weeks, Parraz has been gaining in the polls with a large portion of Democratic voters still undecided. As of a few weeks ago, polling in the primary race between Glassman and Parraz was considered a dead heat.

However, given the current political climate in Arizona and the surging popularity of Governor Jan Brewer who signed into law SB 1070, which Parraz does not support, he’s going to have an uphill climb if he wins tomorrow to fight for this senate seat in the general election. A recent Rasmussen poll shows Governor Brewer ahead of her opponent by over 15 percentage points and 66% of Arizonans supporting the controversial immigration law. I was able to communicate with the Parraz campaign and ask them how they anticipate overcoming this challenge should their candidate win tomorrow, and I was offered this by Parraz’s campaign manager Michael Trujillo:

“While SB 1070 polls well, that has more to do with people not knowing what the law really means. Further, those who do support SB1070 do so tacitly, but immigration isn’t their top issue. It’s not even in their top 5 typically. Compare that to those who oppose SB 1070. These voters have immigration reform as one of the top 2-3 issues – so they are more motivated to turn out. In this group there are a lot of voters not being polled – those who do not have land lines, young people, etc – and these numbers are not insignificant.

McCain used to get 40-50% of Latino voters, that number will be shot down to 10% if Randy is the nominee.

The real issues are jobs and education – two issues that McCain can’t even talk about – his track record of 24 years of lackluster attention to AZ has come to bite the state in the rear-end. Those who voted for a Maverick in 08 are turned off by the say-anything-do-anything candidate that McCain has now become.

Once a sponsor of CIR [comprehensive immigration reform], even dismissing the notion of a border fence three years ago, he switched to a hardline stance on southern border security. McCain supported the repeal of DADT, but in May he promised to filibuster any changes in policy – despite recommendations from top military officials that DADT harms our military’s effectiveness. McCain used to be a champion for climate legislation. He’s backed off that. And finally, the same McCain who sponsored legislation to reign in the influence of money on elections has spent $20M on his primary campaign alone.

Randy will be campaigning energetically in every town between now and Nov, turning Independents and Republicans disgusted with McCain and the direction of their party into Parraz voters.”

So keep your eye on this race tomorrow, and if you are in Arizona (or not), feel free to chime in and let us know what you think about this primary. If you want to hear more about Randy Parraz, I encourage you to check out these clips below: