Running TV advertising to reach a target audience of 2,000 people hardly seems a prudent investment when assessing the media buy from a standard cost-per-thousand (CPM) barometer.
But UFW—standing for United Farm Workers—renders CPM irrelevant in one particular case, underscoring the power of television to do good. The UFW and California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante are the key movers behind public service TV ads in English and Spanish designed to inform former farm laborers that they may be owed pension benefits. While the spots won’t necessarily win any creative awards, they represent the potential of the ad medium to make a meaningful difference in the lives of viewers—and their families.
The timing of the spots’ emergence is particularly apropos in that next week (4/8) marks the holiday commemorating the life of Cesar Chavez, a champion of migrant workers’ rights. Chavez founded the UFW 30 years ago.
Bucking the odds, Chavez—at great personal risk to the well-being of himself, his family and friends—persevered to help make the UFW a viable organization. He cast light on the plight of farm workers, making the public aware of their paltry pay and the inhumane working conditions they faced daily.
Chavez eventually became universally recognized as a human rights hero; a street in East Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood, which is heavily Latino, now bears his name. And the U.S. government sanctioned the aforementioned holiday to help us all remember Chavez’s legacy.
The Juan de la Cruz Farm Workers Pension Plan—named after a 60-year-old farm worker who was fatally shot in a Kern County, Calif., vineyard picket line in 1973—is believed to be the first and only pension program for farm workers. Under the plan, retired farm laborers who worked under a UFW contract are eligible for pension funds. It’s estimated that about 2,000 people qualify for the benefits, but many of these workers don’t even realize that the pension plan exists. These retirees often are in dire need of such funds.
The UFW has tried various ways to try to reach these people. But thus far, those means haven’t proven all that successful. Information on employment records generally offers only sketchy information, making it difficult to find the former workers.
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, in recent years just dozens of former migrant laborers have gotten the pension funds to which they’re entitled. One 86-year-old man in Watsonville, Calif., received in excess of $73,000 last year. Up until then, he had no idea he qualified for a pension.
Bustamante, who is currently running for reelection, hopes the TV ad campaign will make many more others aware of the Juan de la Cruz Farm Workers Pension Plan. The spots are tagged with a pair of toll-free phone numbers for retired farm workers who think they might be eligible (1-888-735-5352; 1-800-321-6607). The toll-free lines were set up by the UFW, which is required by law to make a reasonable effort to track down those entitled to benefits.
In the earlier-cited Los Angeles Times story, Bustamante said that the pension funds could fundamentally change the quality of life for former migrant workers. "Farm workers. … were never treated like regular workers," he said. "They never thought they could receive retirement [funds]. We need to get the word out."
