Social Justice Fund NW honors Ramon Ramirez, President of PCUN

Ramon Ramirez, president of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) and co-founder of CAUSA has been honored by Social Justice Fund of the Northwest (SJFNW) with the Jeanette Rankin Award. Here is the release from SJFNW:

Social Justice Fund of the Northwest (SJFNW) is pleased to honor Ramon Ramirez, president of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), as the recipient of the 2008 Jeanette Rankin Award.

The Jeanette Rankin Award is given to a lifelong activist who has provided extraordinary service to the Social Justice Fund region of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon.

Jeanette Rankin was the first woman to serve in Congress, representing the state of Montana. She was an active member of the women's suffrage movement, and served as a community organizer, labor activist, and lifelong peace activist. As a pacifist, Jeanette was one of a few Congressional members to vote against the United States' entrance into World War I and later, World War II. Jeanette's work helped secure rights for women, children and independent thinkers in the Northwest and across the United States.

Ramon co-founded PCUN in 1985 and has been PCUN President since 1995. He has received numerous recognitions, including a Leadership for a Changing World award in 2003, and a Charles F. Bannerman Fellowship in 2000. Ramon co-founded CAUSA, Oregon's immigrants rights coalition, in 1996 and has served as one of it principal leaders. Ramon is a former Board President of the Western States Center and currently serves on the boards of Farmworker Justice, the Alston-Bannerman Fellowship Program of the Center for Social Inclusion, and the UFW Foundation.

Ramon was founding board president of the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, an organization that has been at the center of the immigration reform debate. Ramon joined the Willamette Valley Immigration Project in late 1977 and is one of its accredited representatives certified to practice immigration law at the administrative level. A native of East Los Angeles, Ramon has lived in the northwest for thirty-five years. He attended St. Martins College, University of Washington, and Colegio Cesar Chavez.

PCUN is a democratically organized, membership-based organization that has long been an anchor for immigrant rights organizing in our region. It is Oregon's only union of farm, nursery and reforestation workers, and is also the state's largest Latino organization. PCUN seeks to institutionalize better working and living conditions, to redress the power imbalance between growers and workers, and to establish respect, fairness and dignity as the bases for agricultural employment.

For more information contact: 503-989-0073

Posted in: PCUN,Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste,Ramon Ramirez,SJFNW,Social Justice Fund of the Northwest,The Jeanette Rankin Award