United Farm Workers March

Farm workers walk Monday along French Camp Road near McKinley Avenue in French Camp. The marchers were en route from Madera to Sacramento. On the way through Stockton, the marching workers paused at the San Joaquin County Courthouse in downtown Stockton to remember Maria Isavel Vasquez Jimenez, a 17-year-old farm laborer who died of heatstroke in May 2008 after collapsing in a Farmington vineyard.

CLIFFORD OTO/The Record
By The Record
August 31, 2011

STOCKTON - About 35 demonstrators marched through San Joaquin County over the past three days, looking for support for state legislation that would entitle farm laborers to overtime pay after eight hours of work and to make it easier for them to unionize.

The marchers demonstrated in support of AB1313, sponsored by Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and SB136, sponsored by state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

Marchers stopped on Monday in front of the San Joaquin County Superior Court to pay homage to Maria Isavel Vasquez Jimenez, a 17-year-old farm worker from Lodi who died of heatstroke in May 2008 after collapsing in a Farmington vineyard. Her family was among the marchers.

The 13-day pilgrimage - dubbed the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Now march - is organized by United Farm Workers. The organization was founded by the late César Chávez.

The trek ends Sunday at the state Capitol where a Labor Day weekend rally is scheduled.

Marchers have been at it since Aug. 22. Their 13-day, 200-mile trek began in Madera. They were in Manteca on Sunday.

It's not the first time farm workers have marched the length of the hot Central Valley. This week's march mirrors those of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when thousands of UFW members and sympathizers used such labor actions to pressure for change.

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