Published 1:59 pm Monday, January 4, 2021
The farmworker advocacy group Community to Community Development, a politically active organization that accuses agriculture of exploitative labor practices, has received a $50,000 grant from the Inslee administration.
The Bellingham, Wash.-based organization is one of 358 nonprofits to share in $11.85 million from the Washington Equity Relief Fund for Nonprofits.
Gov. Jay Inslee directed the state Department of Commerce to give federal CARES Act funds to nonprofit groups led by minorities and that serve minorities. Nearly 1,000 organizations applied.
Commerce announced the recipients Dec. 30 but did not disclose spending plans by the organizations. The grants ranged from $25,000 to $75,000.
Community to Community has been at the forefront of farm labor issues, arguing there is no shortage of U.S. farmworkers and calling for an end to foreign guestworker programs, as well as capitalism.
The group has supported boycotts and strikes, and endorsed legislation to increase state oversight of farm labor conditions.
“As a farmworker community leader, I hold the state accountable for the deaths of farmworkers that have happened and will continue to happen,” the group’s head, Rosalinda Guillen, told a Senate committee in 2019.
The Commerce Department declined Monday to provide details on Community to Community’s application. A spokeswoman said in an email that “there is nothing in the application requiring them to say how they will use the money.”
“The only requirements are an attestation that the organization has been impacted by COVID and, of course, they cannot use the money for any illegal purposes,” the spokeswoman said.
Community to Community’s application was sponsored by the Institute for Washington’s Future, a nonprofit whose board chairwoman is Guillen.
Efforts to obtain comment from Community to Community or the Institute for Washington’s Future were unsuccessful.
Organizations can’t use equity grants for lobbying, according to the commerce department.
Save Family Farming executive director Gerald Baron said “the entire purpose of Community to Community is political activity and lobbying.”
“Based on that, we fail to see how they could have qualified for the $50,000 grant,” Baron said.
Community to Community has been critical of agricultural employers’ response to the coronavirus.
“The pandemic has proven they will do whatever it takes, even sacrifice farmworker lives to reach their profit margins,” according an Oct. 2 Facebook post by Community to Community.
Guillen told the Senate committee in 2019 that farmers who hire foreign workers on H-2A are participating in “an exploitive, almost quasi-slave labor program.”
As recently as August in a Facebook post, Community to Community attributed the 2017 death of a farmworker in Whatcom County to “exploitive conditions in the fields.”
The state Department of Labor and Industries reported in early 2018 that the death was not work-related.
Baron said Guillen has continually accused the farm of causing the worker’s death. “It’s an outright fabrication,” he said.
Philanthropy Northwest helped the state pick grant recipients. More than 100 people helped review and score applications, according to the Commerce Department.
