Alex Egilman '16 traveled to North Carolina to participate in a historic organizing campaign through an internship with Union Summer, a program that introduces young activists to the labor movement.
North Carolina may be the least unionized state in the country, but that didn't stop Alex Egilman '16 from traveling there this summer to help organize thousands of tobacco workers with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). The organizing campaign was historic not only because of its scale and local political context, but because it was a campaign to organize farmworkers, one of the most marginalized workforces in the country.
Egilman worked with FLOC through an internship with Union Summer, a program that introduces young activists from around the country to the labor movement through organizing projects. Andrew Cornell, a visiting professor of American Studies at Haverford, participated in Union Summer himself, and he recommended that Egilman apply for the program after he took Cornell's class on social justice movements.
Over the summer, Egilman spent six days a week visiting work camps, talking with workers about their experiences and encouraging them to join FLOC.“I asked workers if they thought it was fair that tobacco executives make thousands of dollars an hour while the farmworkers make less than $10 an hour toiling in the scorching heat," Egilman says. "I ‘agitated' and raised the question of collective action. If one person complains about wage theft or working conditions what would happen? They would get fired. What if 15,000 workers demand better wages and safe working conditions? Then their employers would need to listen. I agitated, agitated, and agitated some more.” When Egilman wasn't agitating, though, he was organizing camp visits with members of the media and politicians from the U.S. and abroad. The visits allowed outsiders to see the exploitative work conditions at the camps and supported FLOC's larger campaign to pressure R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to end human rights abuses in their supply chain.
Even though workers experience unsafe and unfair working conditions, many are too intimidated to take individual action because they fear retaliation, losing their jobs, and, in many cases, deportation. It was Egilman's job to educate workers about their labor rights including the right to a union.“Helping workers realize that together they have the power and capacity to make change was definitely the best part of the job,” he says. By the end of his 10-week internship, he and 25 other organizers had signed up over 1,000 new members of FLOC.
“I will always be grateful for my experience with FLOC and the relationships I forged with so many hardworking, resilient, and warm-hearted people,” says Egilman, an International Studies major with a concentration in Peace, Justice, and Human Rights. He looks forward to working more with labor in the future, particularly on issues related to occupational health and safety.
