The University of Toledo College of Law Presents the Cannon Lecture - "Organizing the Unorganizable: Labor, Migration, and Human Rights"

There is a widespread consensus across party lines in the United States that there is an urgent need for immigration reform. Yet, discussions on the topic often occur in a vacuum, lacking an acknowledgment of how U.S. foreign policy perpetuates migration and the larger impact policy has on communities in the United States. Baldemar Velasquez will be speaking on the intersections of labor, migration, and human rights, examining the current immigration system in the country and how it exacerbates vulnerabilities in immigrant populations, looking specifically at migrant workers and undocumented workers in informal labor spaces and their families.

 

Velasquez is the founder of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), AFL-CIO, a union of migrant farmworkers in the eastern United States. FLOC has become a grass-roots leader in the immigrant rights movement, organizing the immigrant community to defend their rights, building a broad network in the larger society to support immigrants in realizing their rights, and advocating policies to ensure the human, civil, and working rights of immigrants. FLOC started a change in the agricultural industry's structure through three-way negotiations among the major parties involved in agricultural production.

 

This free, public lecture is part of the Cannon Lecture Series that was established in 1980 to honor former Toledo attorney Joseph A. Cannon. Free guest parking is available for this event, but only in designated spaces within Parking Area 12W. For more information visit the event page: https://www.utoledo.edu/law/events/cannon-lecture/