As we speak, we honor César E. Chávez by carrying on the trigger — “La
Causa” — to which he devoted his life: championing the dignity and
rights of each employee, utilizing nonviolence to battle for justice, and
standing with organized labor to construct an economic system that rewards work and
not simply wealth.
César E. Chávez got here of age choosing produce and cotton within the
fields of California. He labored in intense warmth, all too conversant in
the harms of toxic pesticides. And he realized early on concerning the
energy of organizing for primary dignity and respect by his work with
Fred Ross and the Neighborhood Service Group. Working alongside
trailblazing labor activist Dolores Huerta and impressed by heroes like
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, he based the United
Farm Staff of America in 1962. Over the next three a long time,
Chávez marched, fasted, and boycotted — campaigning for collective
bargaining rights, a minimal wage, unemployment insurance coverage, and higher
well being and security requirements for his fellow employees. His braveness opened
America’s eyes to injustice and ushered in a new age of alternative for
farm employees and the working class.
On what can be his 96th birthday, Chávez’s life and legacy as a
chief of the labor and civil rights actions proceed to information our
efforts to develop our economic system from the underside up and the center out —
preventing day-after-day for America’s working class. My Administration is
creating good-paying jobs, defending the retirement financial savings of tens of millions
of union employees, pushing to ban unfair non-compete agreements, and
strengthening employees’ rights to prepare. Since I took workplace, the
Division of Labor has recovered $16.3 million in again pay and damages —
compensation employers owed to their workers — for almost 20,000
farmworkers. This tough-earned cash can imply a employee’s capacity to pay
hire, purchase groceries, or save for his or her kids’s futures.
The Division of Labor can be engaged on new guidelines to guard
employees from excessive warmth within the office, and it’s conducting
inspections in industries with excessive incidences of heat-related sicknesses
or deaths. In the meantime, the Division of Agriculture has offered
lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} in monetary help to farmworkers
and meatpacking employees for bills incurred because of the COVID-19
pandemic. It has additionally helped agricultural employers to implement extra
strong well being and security requirements.
There may be extra work to do. That’s the reason I proceed to name for
paid sick go away for each employee in America; for stronger organizing and
collective bargaining rights; and for higher circumstances for individuals who
work on farms, on ranches, and throughout the meals and agricultural
trade. I encourage the Congress to move the Defending the Proper to
Set up Act. I additionally encourage the Congress to move the Farm Workforce
Modernization Act to create a pathway to citizenship for farmworkers,
who put meals on our tables and maintain our Nation.
This César Chávez Day, as we have a good time an American hero, allow us to
be united in our efforts to face up for the dignity and rights of all
employees. I proudly hold a bust of César E. Chávez within the Oval Workplace,
which jogs my memory day by day of my dedication to the Latino neighborhood and to
the American folks. The First Girl has honored his legacy with the
Chávez household in Keene and Delano, California, dwelling of Chávez’s
motion. I need to make sure the American Dream is inside attain of all
who stay in our Nation, not simply because it’s proper for our economic system,
however as a result of it’s the proper factor to do for humanity. In Chávez’s personal
phrases, “The love for justice that’s in us isn’t solely the very best a part of
our being, however additionally it is probably the most true to our nature.”
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United
States of America, by advantage of the authority vested in me by the
Structure and the legal guidelines of america, do hereby proclaim March
31, 2023, as César Chávez Day. I name upon all People to look at
at the present time as a day of service and studying, with acceptable service,
neighborhood, and teaching programs to honor César E. Chávez’s enduring
legacy.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I’ve hereunto set my hand this
thirtieth
day of March, within the yr of our Lord two thousand twenty-three, and of
the Independence of the United States of America the 2 hundred and
forty-seventh.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.