Farm Worker Justice Fund

This fund supports just struggles of migrant and seasonal farm workers for decent living and working conditions — such as affordable clean and safe  housing, freedom  from pesticide poisoning and living wages. NEJA has helped bring together the power of legal and medical professionals and other specialists with labor organizations of farm workers. Together they have taken on otherwise seemingly insurmountable odds against entrenched power structures to win long-needed victories.

NEJA grants and expertise assisted farm workers in obtaining potable drinking water when state-operated housing units had wood slivers, pieces of metal and fatty sludge in their tap water — officials not only failed to correct the problem but retaliated against workers who filed complaints. After mounting a community-wide campaign, including forming an independent fact-finding committee of experts, they won action by the local government to hook up the farm worker residences with a potable water supply from the city water main. This same objective had been sought after and lost a decade prior because the workers had been too isolated; many were fired and blacklisted by other employers in the area for “causing trouble.”

NEJA supported litigation on behalf of farm workers subjected to illegal rent hikes by a state agency and helped them sustain an 20-year-long court battle and until they won $1.2 million in settlement funds.

In numerous instances, NEJA’s power as an independent organization has reversed chilling effects that had sty¬mied those seeking legitimate and lifesaving change.