Films for Thought Series

The Western MA Coalition for Immigrant and Worker Rights has been fortunate to connect with Food for Thought Books, a worker-owned collective in Amherst, which has been holding a monthly Films for Thought series open to the public. Last Wednesday, June 11th, we teamed up with Food for Thought's Javiera Benavente and Casa Latina's Edgar Cancel to screen Morristown: In the Air and Sun and hold a conversation about the issues of immigration, labor, ethnicity and economics brought up in the film.

Roughly 30 people showed up to the event and most were able to stay for the discussion afterwards. Many were upset by the unfair treatment of workers, both citizens and immigrants. An interesting comment echoed by many present was that the solidarity across cultures was uplifting. Too often the mainstream media shows only images of handcuffed undocumented workers walking single file onto ICE buses while angry nativists spew hateful refrains. Morristown was refreshing in that the residents represented in the movie understood that the rights they were organizing for were for ALL workers in their community.

The solidarity was even more poignant because of the parallels between Morristown's chicken processing and Postville, Iowa's meatpacking plants. In both cases, workers were unionizing with the help of United Food and Commercial Workers to petition for more bathroom breaks, adequate pay and safer work conditions. In both cases the workers voted to unionize. In Morristown's case, the company eventually recognized the union and accepted their demands. Postville, however, is a completely different story.

In Iowa, Agriprocessors refused to recognize the union vote. Their argument in court was that since many of the workers were undocumented, the union vote didn't count. Furthermore, the company was being investigated for child labor law violations. There were also allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the plant. Then on May 12th of this year, ICE descended on this town of less than 3,000 residents and detained 390 of its workers.

Our little Morristown screening collected donations for the Postville community, which is still reeling from the May raid. It will take a long time for this town to recover. If you would like to help out, please send donations to:

El Centro Latinoamericano
500 E. 4th Street Ste. 321
Waterloo, Iowa 50703

We also collected pledges for the Welcoming Massachusetts campaign and rallied interest in working to make Northampton and Amherst official Welcoming Communities.

The next Films for Thought screening will be Detained: The New Bedford Immigration Raid, on Wednesday, July 16th, 7 pm, at Food for Thought Books, 106 N. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA. For more information, contact wmciwr@gmail.com or Javiera@foodforthoughtbooks.com.

crossposted at Western MA Coalition for Immigrant and Worker Rights blog