In today’s News & Commentary, immigrant agricultural workers stay home in California’s Central Valley, the Department of Labor shuts down enforcement of government contractors’ compliance with revoked anti-discrimination and affirmative action programs, and independent Senate candidate and labor leader Dan Osborn encourages other working class people to run for office.

Bakersfield, California has seen a massive drop-off in the number of field workers as ICE agents in unmarked Suburbans rounded up and detained immigrants in recent weeks. Bakersfield is part of California’s Central Valley, which produces about a quarter of the nation’s food and runs on the labor of undocumented laborers. Over half of the workers in Kern County are estimated to be undocumented. One grower reported having just 5 workers rather than his expected 30. The Valley is in the middle of its citrus harvesting season and the lack of workers means acres of orange groves go unpicked. “You are talking about a recession-level event if this is the new long-term norm,” said Cal State-Bakersfield economics professor Richard Gearhart, arguing President Trump’s immigration policies will result in higher food prices. 

Following President Trump’s repeal of 60-year-old Executive Order 11246 which Divya reported on last week, the Department of Labor is shutting down enforcement related to government contractors’ compliance with anti-discrimination and affirmative action programs. On Friday, Acting Labor Secretary Vincent Micone sent an order to DOL staff implementing the repeal by immediately ending all ongoing investigations and enforcement activity and setting a deadline to inform all regulated parties with open reviews or investigations that those actions have been closed. The now revoked EO 11246 gave DOL the power to review contractors’ hiring, pay, and other data for potential discrimination violations. It also required the development of affirmative action programs as well as outreach and recruitment programs for underrepresented workers. Enforcing EO 11246 has been a large part of the work of DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, with large companies like Microsoft, Deloitte, Google, Amazon, and Pfizer under its jurisdiction.

Dan Osborn, the labor leader and independent candidate for Senate in Nebraska last November, is encouraging other working class candidates to run for office. He is a former local union president who helped lead a multi-state strike against Kellogg’s and was recruited by railroad workers in his state to run for the Senate. He won 47% and lost to Republican Deb Fischer, but ran almost 10 points ahead of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ 39% in the state. He hopes his campaign “will pave the way for more truck drivers, nurses, teachers, plumbers, carpenters, and other working-class people to run for office” and says that “people are hungry for anything outside the two parties.” Osborn started the Working Class Heroes Fund, with the goal of raising $200,000 to recruit, train, and support blue-collar candidates for office.