NJP’s Farmworker Unit has one underlying goal: to build farmworker power. And that means supporting the leadership of Latina farmworkers who organize, speak up, and create change. Litigation can support that mission, but farmworker power does not begin with lawyers or lawsuits. It begins with workers.
Five women who worked at WP Packing, a fruit-packing warehouse in Wapato, Washington, show what that looks like.
Speaking up together
These women and their coworkers raised concerns about conditions in the packing house: excessive heat, restricted bathroom access, uncompensated waiting time, excessive hours, unequal pay, verbal harassment, and failures to respond properly to workplace injuries. Many employees were monolingual Spanish speakers, and women made up most of the workforce on the packing lines.
The women did not begin by going to court. They began by talking with one another.
They raised concerns with supervisors and human resources. They went to WorkSource. They met with management. When those efforts did not produce change, 23 workers signed a letter asking the company’s owners to improve working conditions. Yaquelin helped organize the letter, and other workers helped gather signatures.
That is farmworker power: coworkers overcoming fear, beginning to trust one another, and moving from private conversations to collective action.
Facing retaliation
The women then faced retaliation, including reduced hours, greater scrutiny, verbal harassment, threats, and the loss of their jobs. Workers were also pressured to sign an agreement requiring individual arbitration and waiving collective claims.
When the women came to Northwest Justice Project, they were not asking us to give them a voice. They had already used their voices, repeatedly and at significant personal risk. Our responsibility was to listen, believe in their capacity to lead, and help turn their collective action into enforceable legal rights.
A creative legal strategy
That required creativity, because agricultural workers are excluded from the organizing protections of the federal National Labor Relations Act. Washington’s Little Norris-LaGuardia Act, however, protects workers from employer interference, restraint, or coercion when they act together for mutual aid or protection.
The Farmworker Unit, working with Kathy Barnard, used that state law to support the principle the women had already put into practice: farmworkers have the right to join together and seek better conditions. Throughout the litigation, the women made decisions collectively, without the supervision of lawyers.
The result
The case settled in December 2022 for $265,000. The settlement also required a 24-hour worker-complaint hotline, notices about workplace policies and rights, training for supervisors and managers, and discipline for violations of company policy.
The financial recovery mattered. But the women’s courage also produced new systems for raising complaints and holding supervisors accountable, changing conditions for the workers who came after them.
One of the women, Maria Guadalupe Morfin Avalos, expressed the meaning of the case:
It is important that workers know they should not have fear about speaking up and asking for change. If we join together, we can make changes.
Building farmworker power doesn’t mean fear disappears. It means acting together despite the risks, so that no woman stands alone. Our role is not to lead in their place, but to help create the conditions in which their leadership can succeed.