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AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | Farm Labor Leader Spends Week in the Tobacco Fields 

Members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in North Carolina harvest 26 different crops ranging from cucumbers to tobacco to Christmas trees. By far, harvesting tobacco is considered the worst, the riskiest and the dirtiest of the jobs.

FLOC founder and president Baldemar Velásquez felt compelled to experience what the tobacco workers go through each day. So for a week in July, he worked as an unknown field laborer in an all-male group at a North Carolina farm to see firsthand the conditions of tobacco workers. Tobacco workers are paid between $7 and $9 an hour. Velásquez is donating the money he made to FLOC’s fund for widows of union members.

In his Point of View column “A Week in the Tobacco Fields” on the AFL-CIO website, Velásquez recounts through excerpts of his daily diary his experiences and emotions working with the men in the hot fields.

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