Historic Farmworker Overtime Bill in California. After intense pressure from organized labor, California’s state Assembly followed on the state Senate’s footsteps and passed a bill that, if signed by Gov. Brown, will make the state the first in giving farmworkers the same overtime pay enjoyed by workers in other industries. This measure would end almost 80 years of exclusion of farmworkers from overtime labor protections. Ruben Tapia followed the debate in Sacramento and files the report.
Private Immigrant Detention Business Under Review. Responding to years of complaints over the detention conditions for thousands of immigrants and after the Justice Department announced it will end the use of private prisons, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said this week his agency will study a possible change in the contracts with nearly 50 private companies that run immigrant detention facilities. According to Johnson, federal inspectors found serious safety issues in privately-operated centers. Lawyer Nora Preciado, of the National Immigration Law Center, analyzed this issue on Radio Bilingüe’s Línea Abierta talk show. Preciado is co-author of a call to close private detention centers and is part of a lawsuit against the federal government over the treatment of immigrants detained in Arizona.
Colombia Celebrates Historic Peace Agreement. After more than 50 years of a conflict that cost more than 240 thousand lives and six million displaced, the largest rebel group and the government of Colombia have reached a historic agreement to end the longest-running civil war in the continent. The peace deal will become law if the voters accept it in an upcoming referendum. International attorney Almudena Bernabeu, director of Transitional Justice for the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco, California, will travel to Colombia to support the peace process as a consultant for civil society. Bernabeu, a human rights expert, talks about it with Radio Bilingüe’s News Director Samuel Orozco.
