Forty-six years ago this month, my father joined Cesar Chavez in Delano, California, to share the Eucharist and end Chavez's 1968 fast for farm workers' rights. It took another nine years, but the state of California would go on to answer Chavez's call for justice and pass its groundbreaking Agricultural Labor Relations Act. That law surged California forward in the global labor movement, but New York never had a Cesar Chavez. And so today -- in the state where my father served as senator and where I now live -- our farm workers suffer from the leftover Jim Crow laws that California addressed nearly half a century ago.
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Farm workers suffer from laws California addressed nearly half a century ago
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Kennedy: You should see how farm workers are treated
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Passing new bill is first step to addressing human rights violations
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All of us have the opportunity to join the struggle today
And though he earned it, he could not claim overtime pay -- overtime that would be paid to any deli worker in @placeholder.