Our Newsletters
September 2023 Newsletter
/Help Promote Democracy, Equality, Cooperation, Kindness & Sustainability (DECKS)
In this Issue
Human Agenda Promotes Coop Development
Centro Feliz: Meeting the Needs of Local Central Americans
Executive Director Lays Out Human Agenda Vision in Recent Letter to the Editor
Board Members Witness Struggle and Visionary Action in Honduras
Save the Date: Break the Mold on November 4
Human Agenda Promotes Coop Development
Human Agenda coop developer Adriana Cabrera with members of the emerging South County promotora cooperative
Human Agenda coop developer Adriana Cabrera with members of the emerging South County promotora cooperative. Eight of twelve workshops have been completed.
Six members of Alma Premium Care LLC meet in the Human Agenda office
Six members of Alma Premium Care LLC meet in the Human Agenda office. Final documents have been sent to the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and Alma Premium Care will soon be licensed and ready to launch.
2. Centro Feliz: Meeting the Needs of Local Central Americans
Leaders meeting inside Tanchito’’s
Local leaders born in Central America met for pupusas and baleadas at Tanchito’s on September 15, 2023, the day of Central American independence, to plan the development of a local Central American support group. No such organization exists at this time in the South Bay. If you know a person from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, or Nicaragua interested in supporting the needs of Central Americans, please contact Human Agenda Board Member Amanda Carpio at sji.usal@gmail.com . The next planning meeting will be held on Saturday, October 14, with lunch included.
newspaper photo of the letter
3. Executive Director Lays Out Human Agenda Vision in Recent Letter to the Editor
4. Board Members Witness Struggle and Visionary Action in Honduras
Photo Board Members Perla Flores and Richard Hobbs visit the Chile Agricultural Cooperative in Honduras
Board Members Perla Flores and Richard Hobbs visit the Chile Agricultural Cooperative in Honduras. Earlier this year the 248 brave members of this cooperative occupied the land taken away from their parents over 30 years ago. They recently harvested their first crop.
Photo of Johnny Rivas, leader of the Agrarian Platform
Johnny Rivas, leader of the Agrarian Platform, reads the Resist and Build flyer of Human Agenda. The Plataforma Agraria consists of 14 agricultural cooperatives who have lost 171 members to violence in their struggle to protect land and water from multinational palm oil corporations in the Aguan region of Honduras. Human Agenda has been invited to present its Resist and Build ideas regarding values, vision, and praxis at a conference in Tocoa on October 19, 2023.
On the left, Garifona women in the port of Tela make pan de coco (coconut bread). On the right, Human Agenda Board Members meet with a Garifona leader
On the left, Garifona women in the port of Tela make pan de coco (coconut bread). On the right, Human Agenda Board Members meet with a Garifona leader. Albeit being a majority in Tela, the Garifonas have suffered decades of discrimination. A large number of men have immigrated to the United States. Powerful Garifona women continue their fight for justice, despite a recent armed attack on one of their leaders.
Over 100,000 Hondurans marched at the end of September to replace the corrupt Attorney General of Honduras, who for two terms of 5 years each refused to prosecute known narco-traffickers such as the ex-president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is now imprisoned in New York. The Partido Libre called for this massive march in favor of a prosecutor who will prosecute criminals in and outside of the government.
5. Save the Date: Break the Mold on November 4
On Saturday, November 4th in cooperation with the Associated Student Body and the Ethnic Studies Department at San Jose City College Human Agenda will hold its 7th Annual Break the Mold conference. The conference will focus on two basic necessities that every human being requires: food and housing.
Eight panelists will address the topic of how to provide quality food and housing to all. Following presentations time will be allocated for Q and A and dialogue.
The conference will be held in the Technology Building, room 415, at San Jose City College on Saturday, November 4 from 9:30 am to 2 pm with one hour allotted for lunch.
Admission is free. Save the date.
August 2023 Newsletter
/Help Promote Democracy, Equality, Cooperation, Kindness & Sustainability (DECKS)
In this Issue
What Participants Learned: The 50-Mile Rule and Migrant Farmworker Conditions
Executive Director Provides Keynote at International Symposium on Cooperatives in Havana
The Cuban Revolution Focuses on Human Needs and Values by Salem Ajluni
Save the Date: Break the Mold on November 4
1. The 50-Mile Rule and Migrant Farmworker Conditions
testimonies from residents at the buena vista migrant labor camp
On July 30 as part of its “The Lives of Farmworkers” summer series, Human Agenda friends and activists viewed the painful story of farmworker children who in 24 migrant labor camps in California are forced to move 50 miles away in the off season, disrupting their education, to satisfy the definition of “migrant”.
Filmmaker Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz presented the west coast premiere of Como Vivimos (How We Live) which documents the difficulties that farmworkers face daily including this educational tragedy.
After Human Agenda dropped off free household goods and clothing for residents at the Buena Vista Migrant Labor Camp, participants heard testimony from six female farmworkers regarding the traumatic conditions of farmworker life.
Araceli explained that after picking strawberries for over 20 years, she is permanently disabled. Elia explained some of the obstacles farmworkers face. Farmworkers receive $15.50 per hour or $5.50 an hour and $150 for each large basket picked (a large basket has 12 small baskets), whichever is higher. Because of climate change, the strawberry crop has severely diminished and the strawberries are often brown or smaller. A 3 to 4-hour work day is common, providing little income to farmworkers.
After a 7 or 8- month season, farmworkers are forced to leave the subsidized housing, but how do they rent an apartment for 4-5 months locally when there is no housing stock, and where landlords require a one-year lease and a deposit and the final month’s rent? Many farmworkers are forced to return to their native Mexico in the off season to survive, but they cannot receive unemployment compensation because they are not available to work.
Dr. Ann Lopez, Executive Director of the Center for Farmworker Families, explained how NAFTA led to the migration of millions of Mexican subsistence farmers in Mexico who could no longer compete with highly subsidized and mechanized U.S. agribusinesses that no longer had to pay tariffs. She mentioned 4 pillars of the neoliberal economy that since the Reagan Administration have undercut both US and Mexican workers: deregulation, privatization, reduction of public services, and blaming the poor instead of the wealthy.
2. Executive Director Provides Keynote Speech at International
Symposium on Cooperatives in Havana
Human Agenda Executive Director Richard Hobbs was invited to speak at the International Symposium on Cooperatives at the University of Habana in late June. His presentation, A New Human Agenda, was loudly applauded by the conference goers, as well as by more than 20 professors from the Economics Department that he also engaged in dialogue.
Hobbs pointed out the major elements of our current economic system including exploitation, speculation, corruption, oppression, and alienation. He then used 6 additional concepts—methodology, necessities, vision, values and praxis—to posit that worker-owned cooperatives are a superior form of economic organization compared to multinational corporations.
The conference participants from Puerto Rico, Mexico, and other countries understood that the DECKS values of Human Agenda—democracy, equity, cooperation, kindness and sustainability—are the very values that drive cooperative development. These values have little to do with the major corporations and government entities that dominate the United States.
Hobbs pointed out that “The U.S. could use a little Cuba”, where the state is subsidizing new worker-owned cooperatives and universal health care and education are free for life.
didn’t Citing the DECKS values of Human Agenda, of the board member John de Graaf has produced this widely acclaimed documentary on the life and times of Stewart Lee Udall, former Congressperson and Secretary of the Interior under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Udall was the most prominent and effective Secretary of the Interior in American history.
3. The Cuban Revolution Focuses on Human Needs and Values
Reflections from the Human Agenda June Emulation Tour to Cuba
By Salem Ajluni
Salem Ajluni is a member of the Board of Directors of Human Agenda and a member of its Executive Committee. Here he provides a donation to a local school in Habana.
If Cuba has landfill sites, they must be few in number and small in size. It is a country that, of necessity and volition, has engaged in the conservation and preservation of everything. It is not only the ubiquitous 1950s American cars meticulously preserved to serve Cuban commuters and joyriding tourists (oftentimes with transplanted Mercedes diesel engines under the hood), but also farm implements of every variety and age; hand and power tools and equipment; construction materials; furniture; household appliances and electronics; clothing and shoes and almost anything else that can serve a useful purpose by extending its life.
Very little is tossed; very much is repaired, recycled and reused. Likewise, Cubans have preserved their architectural heritage like few places in the world as can readily be observed by cruising Havana’s grand boulevards, those of adjoining Miramar and Playa or the streets of almost any neighborhood.
Cuba’s revolutionary social system has also preserved the lives of its people, despite its history as a poor former Spanish slave colony, as a former U.S.-occupied neo-colony and as the target of unrelenting hostility and aggression from the U.S. government for more than six decades.
Walking its streets as a North American, one might be fooled into thinking it is a poor country. But with a population roughly equal to that of Los Angeles county, one sees that there is no sign of homelessness (over 90% of Cubans own their own housing). The social system guarantees sufficient food and nutrition for every person and every household. Cubans enjoy guaranteed high quality healthcare from birth to death and high quality guaranteed education from pre-school through university without any out of pocket obligations.
Indeed, Cubans live longer and healthier lives and are generally better educated than most people in the Americas (including many in North America).
Above all, Cuba stands out for its conservation and preservation of basic human values that prioritize the dignified physical and social welfare of its people and its solidarity with other peoples who struggle against the odds to achieve the same.
Interacting with Cubans and learning of their experiences is to appreciate the extraordinary, almost quixotic, achievements of Cuba’s revolution in social and economic development, but also of its abiding commitment to helping the hard-pressed in a world dominated by rapacious capital accumulation and destructive commercialism. A visit to Cuba, in short, is a good way to rejuvenate in oneself the commitment to Human Agenda’s expressed values: democracy, equity, cooperation, kindness and sustainability.
4. Save the Date: Break the Mold on November 4
On Saturday, November 4th in cooperation with the Associated Student Body and the Ethnic Studies Department at San Jose City College Human Agenda will hold its 7th Annual Break the Mold conference. The conference will focus on two basic necessities that every human being requires: food and housing.
Eight panelists will address the topic of how to provide quality food and housing to all. Following presentations time will be allocated for Q and A and dialogue.
The conference will be held in the Technology Building, room 415, at San Jose City College on Saturday, November 4 from 9:30 am to 2 pm with one hour allotted for lunch.
Admission is free. Save the date.
July 2023 Newsletter
/Help Promote Democracy, Equality, Cooperation, Kindness & Sustainability (DECKS)
In this Issue
LAST CHANCE: The 50-Mile Rule and Migrant Farmworker Housing Carpool this Sunday
The Lives of Farmworkers in Half Moon Bay
Facts About California Farmworkers
Pending Farmworker Bills in California
CalCare Town Hall: Support AB 1690
Save the Date: South Bay Premiere of Stewart Udall with Filmmaker John de Graaf Aug. 13
1. The 50-Mile Rule and Migrant Farmworker Housing: Sign Up Now
Como Vivimos Documentary, Testimonies, Farmworker Meal, & Migrant Labor Camp Visit
Join Human Agenda this Sunday to hear from two farmworkers at the Buena Vista Migrant Labor Camp and another displaced farmworker from the Pajaro flooding.
We will also see the premiere of Como Vivimos, a new documentary on the 50-mile rule affecting the education of farmworker children, enjoy a farmworker meal, and hear from Dr. Ann Lopez about farmworker conditions and the impact of NAFTA on subsistence farmers in Mexico.
2. Farmworkers in Half Moon Bay Share Their Stories
July 16 was a special day for over a dozen Human Agenda board members and supporters who learned about the working conditions and displacement suffered by farmworkers in Half Moon Bay. Suffering under climate crisis heat, earning slightly above the minimum wage, working chaotic hours controlled by growers, and reeling from the mass killing of four farmworkers at the mushroom business where they work, farmworkers explained the conditions that control their lives.
This farmworker tour was coordinated by Judith Guerrero, Executive Director of Coastside Hope in Granada , a few miles north. Judith explained the exceptional support that this non-profit provides to farmworkers, low-income service workers, and immigrants in particular. Truly an exemplary human needs-focused not-for-profit agency, Coastside Hope assists with food, rental assistance, medical referrals, immigration legal support, tax preparation, and other services providing for the whole person. Judith’s family comes from a farmworker tradition—in fact her mother, a farmworker, prepared the delicious tamales that participants consumed.
Human Agenda board member Brenda Rodriguez, left, translates for Half Moon Bay farmworkers Uriel and Cornelio, as Coastside Hope Executive Director Judith Guerrero looks on.
3. Facts About California Farmworkers
Human Agenda intern Jacob Kahn has compiled the following facts about California farmworkers. Most statistics are from the US Department of Labor,
Farmworkers workers are 3500% (35 times more) likely to die of heat exhaustion than other workers.
17% of California farmworkers in the fiscal year of 2019-20 are US citizens, 23% are legal permanent residents, and 59% are undocumented.
66% of California farmworkers in the fiscal year of 2019-20 are males.
The average age of the workers is 41.
The average highest completed grade of school for California farmworkers is 8th grade. 4% of workers have completed no levels of schooling, 12% have 1st-3rd grade, 31% have 4th-7th grade, 33% have the highest level of schooling in 8th-11th, and 21% have completed high school or one year of college.
39% of California farmworkers self-reported as having no English Speaking Ability (ESA), 33% as having "a little" ESA, 15% as having "somewhat" ESA, and 13% as having "well" ESA. Similarly, only 13% self-reported as having good reading ability.
44% of workers are married parents. 19% are married without children. 15% are unmarried parents. 22% are unmarried without children.
The median personal income range of workers is $20,000-24,999.
17% of worker families are below the poverty level income, and 69% of worker families received benefits from needs-based programs.
9% of workers are Mexican-American. 80% of workers are Mexican. 6% are not Hispanic or Latino.
The average hourly earnings in 2019-2020 was $13.87.
9% of farm workers are paid below minimum wage.
The average number of days worked in the last 12 months is 250 days. The average number of weeks worked in the last 12 months is 43. The average number of hours worked per week is 49 hours. 16% of workers worked between 51-60 hours per week.
50% of farmworkers have "health insurance, taking into account all provider sources, including the respondent's employer, self-insurance, the government, the spouse's employer etc."
Counties with the lowest proportions of farmworkers are located in the Los Angeles basin, the Bay Area, and Sierras.
4. Pending Farmworker Bills in California
Dr. Ann Lopez and the Center for Farmworker Families have compiled the following list of pending legislation in California affecting farmworkers.The list is slightly modified.
AB 642--- Marginalized communities, especially farmworker communities, suffer disproportionate damage from pesticide exposure. This important bill has already passed the Assembly and now is up for consideration in the state Senate. Currently, there is no system of accountability for harmful pesticide exposure across California. The bill will establish an environmental justice advisory committee of 10–15 community members in the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) representing marginalized communities to insure inclusion, consultation and cooperation with rural communities on the frontlines of pesticide exposure. This bill will provide these communities with a voice to express their concerns and advise the DPR on the efficacy of pesticide applications in their communities.
AB 421---This bill will give voters the power to counter the political effects of concentrated corporate wealth. It will prevent corporations from virtually vetoing critical advances that workers and communities have won through legislation.
AB 513---The California Individual Assistance Act will provide relief for the flood victims of Pajaro. It would establish a program through the California Office of Emergency Services that would provide direct financial assistance to all Californians, regardless of documentation status, in times of disaster. The assistance would provide financial assistance to help families repair disaster-related damages and losses in income not covered by insurance or other assistance programs so that economic assistance can be quickly and equitably distributed following major wildfires, flooding, and other disasters.
SB 227---The Excluded Workers Program establishes a three-year pilot program that would extend unemployment benefit eligibility to as many as 1.1 million workers, including farmworkers, who don’t qualify due to immigration status. Currently, employers pay $485 million into the unemployment insurance system on behalf of undocumented workers. However, unlike other workers, undocumented workers never receive any of these funds.
AB 1757---This bill promotes the reduction of greenhouse gases, including pesticide reduction in agriculture. A new report from the Pesticide Action Network finds pesticide use is expected to increase and become more hazardous as the climate warms. The chemical use in large scale farming is increasing as effectiveness drops and climate change puts additional pressure on agriculture.
AB 408---This Bill proposes a $3.4 billion bond for the November 2024 ballot to invest in creating a more equitable and climate resilient food and farming system. Proposed funding would promote sustainable agriculture, farmworker well-being, healthy, and sustainable food access.
5. CalCare Town Hall: Support AB 1690
Human Agenda has been a long-term supporter of MediCare for All and its California twin, CalCare. On Wednesday, July 19 the California Nurses Association and allies including the South Bay Progressive Alliance and Human Agenda supported the launch of a statewide campaign to pass California universal health care first “as a policy, subject to appropriation” stated State Senator Dave Cortese. When the details of a financing plan become the central topic of conversation, the forest is lost in the trees and California lawmakers. First they need to agree that we need a policy to care of all the health needs of everyone in California. Once a policy bill is passed, then California can seek federal MediCal waivers to help finance the program.
Both Senator Cortese and Assemblymember Ash Kalra, Chair of the Labor and Employment Committee of the California Assembly, were adamant and passionate that to “reduce suffering” AB 1690 must become law. AB 1690 is a spot bill at this point that will include full language by early 2024.
These enlightened policymakers made several remarkable points:
“Medical bankruptcies are uniquely American”, stated Kalra.They don’t happen in other advanced countries, which all have universal health care coverage.
“Long term care is a tsunami. CalCare would deal with this”, Kalra also stated.
“Retiree benefits are impossible to contain given rising private health care sector costs”, explained Cortese.“The solution is CalCare.”
“Private sector companies are misclassifying workers as independent contractors to avoid healthcare costs”, mentioned Cortese.
Employers could save millions with CalCare, spending a fraction of what they spend now.As to both employers and unions, “What you legislate you don’t have to negotiate”, both agreed.
“We need a full on movement like ending slavery”, urged Cortese, who also quoted Nelson Mandela regarding the long march for human rights like health care: “It seems impossible until it is done.”
Assemblymember Kalra is the author of AB 1690. Both policymakers must be commended for sticking their necks out in support of the full medical needs of workers, elderly, immigrants, the infirm, and everyone “to reduce suffering”.
6. Save the Date: The Politics of Beauty with Filmmaker John de Graaf
Join Human Agenda & Environmentalists on Sunday August 13 at 3 PM
Former Human Agenda board member John de Graaf has produced this widely acclaimed documentary on the life and times of Stewart Lee Udall, former Congressperson and Secretary of the Interior under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Udall was the most prominent and effective Secretary of the Interior in American history.
In the words of John de Graaf: “No American political figure is as relevant to the issues we face today as a nation -- learning to work together, achieving racial and environmental justice, improving international relations, enhancing beauty and the arts, alleviating climate change and moving toward sustainability -- as Stewart Udall.”
Stewart Udall and the Politics of Beauty will be hosted by Human Agenda on Sunday, August 13, at 3 PM at CreaTV, 38 South Second Street, San Jose, CA 95113. The film is co-sponsored by a bevy of local environmental organizations including the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, 350 Silicon Valley, Our City Forest, the South Bay Progressive Alliance, the San Jose Peace and Justice Center, and the Smart Yards Cooperative. there will be ample opportunity for dialogue with the filmmaker.
This feature documentary examines the trajectory of Udall’s life from his childhood through his Mormon mission, his World War II service, his student years at the University of Arizona, his time in Congress, and most significantly, his years as Secretary of the Interior and beyond. We see Udall evolve from a pro-power dam Arizona representative to the Interior Secretary who dealt the death blow to proposed Grand Canyon dams. It examines his long fight to win compensation for Navajo Indians and “downwinders” who got cancer from their exposure to radiation during the Cold War without being warned of the dangers. And we see the relevance of his concerns—he was the first public official to speak out about global warming, for example.
Admission is free.