Elizabeth Warren unveils farmworkers’ rights plan

By Melissa Gomez

March 2, 2020

Sen. Elizabeth Warren unveiled a plan for farmworker and food chain employee rights Monday that would bolster federal safety protections and workers’ access to basic rights.

The Massachusetts senator’s proposal comes the day before Super Tuesday, when voters cast ballots in 14 states including California, home to about a third of the nation’s farmworkers, many of whom are in the country illegally. Warren also plans to appear Monday in East Los Angeles, where she is expected to speak about the Justice for Janitors movement.

“For decades, agricultural labor has been intentionally excluded from basic labor laws. … This exclusion was justified with explicitly racist reasons, one of the many ways in which Americans of color were excluded from the opportunities that built America’s white middle class,” Warren notes in her plan.

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