The
United Farm Workers of America (UFWA) (
SpanishSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
:
) is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the
Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the
National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by
César ChávezCésar Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
. This union changed from a workers' rights organization that helped workers get unemployment insurance to that of a union of
farmworkerA farmworker is a person hired to work in the agricultural industry. This includes work on farms of all sizes, from small, family-run businesses to large industrial agriculture operations...
s almost overnight, when the NFWA went out on strike in support of the mostly
FilipinoFilipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...
farmworkers of the AWOC in
DelanoDelano's climate is characteristic of the San Joaquin Valley. The weather is hot and dry during the summer and cool and damp in winter. Frequent ground fog known regionally as "tule fog" can obscure vision. Record temperatures range between 115°F and 14°F...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
who had previously initiated a grape strike on September 8, 1965. The NFWA and the AWOC, recognizing their common goals and methods, and realizing the strengths of coalition formation, jointly formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966.
This organization eventually became the United Farm Workers and launched a boycott of table grapes and, after five years of struggle, finally won a contract with the major grape growers in California.....
Roles
The union then brought in thousands more lettuce and vegetable workers in the
SalinasThe Salinas Valley lies south of San Francisco, California.The word "salina" is spanish for salt marsh, salt lake or salt pan.-Geography:The Salinas Valley runs approximately south-east from Salinas towards King City. The valley lends its name to the geologic province in which it's located, the...
and Imperial Valleys and orange workers in
FloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
employed by subsidiaries of
Coca-ColaCoca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
.
The union publicly adopted the principles of non-violence championed by
Mahatma GandhiMohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
and
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
The union was poised to launch its next major campaign in the lettuce fields in 1970 when a deal between the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the growers nearly destroyed it. Initially the Teamsters signed contracts with lettuce growers in the Salinas Valley, who wanted to avoid recognizing the UFW. Then in 1973, when the three year UFW grape contracts expired, the grape growers signed contracts giving the Teamsters the right to represent the workers who had been members of the UFW.
The UFW responded with strikes, lawsuits and boycotts, including secondary boycotts in the retail grocery industry. The union struggled to regain the members it had lost in the lettuce fields; it never fully recovered its strength in grapes, due in some part to incompetent management of the hiring halls it had established that seemed to favor some workers over others.
The battles in the fields became violent, with a number of UFW members killed on the picket line. The violence led the state in 1975 to enact the
California Agricultural Labor Relations ActThe California Agricultural Labor Relations Act is a landmark statute enacted by the state of California which became law on June 5, 1975, and which establishes collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state....
, creating an administrative agency, the ALRB, that oversaw secret ballot elections and resolved charges of unfair labor practices, like failing to bargain in good faith, or discrimination against activists.
On July 22, 2005, the UFW announced that it was joining the
Change to Win FederationThe Change to Win Federation is a coalition of American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advocacy of the organizing model...
, a coalition of labor unions functioning as an alternative to the
AFL-CIOThe American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
. On January 13, 2006, the union officially disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO. In contrast to other Change to Win-affiliated unions, the AFL-CIO neglected to offer the right of affiliation to regional bodies to the UFW.
"AFL Discriminates Against UFW." Working Life. February 22, 2006.
Foundation of the UFW
Dolores Huerta grew up in Stockton, California, which was in the San Joaquin Valley, an area filled with farms. In the early 1950s, she completed a teaching degree at Delta Community College, part of the University of the Pacific. She briefly worked as an elementary school teacher. Huerta saw that her students, many of them children of farm workers, were living in poverty without enough food to eat or other basic necessities. To help, she became one of the founders of the Stockton chapter of the Community Services Organization (CSO). The CSO worked to improve social and economic conditions for farm workers and to fight discrimination.
By 1959, Cesar Chavez had already established professional relationships with local community organizations that aimed to empower the working class population by encouraging them to become more politically active. In 1952, Chavez met
Fred RossFred Ross was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization in 1948, which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO in San Jose, CA gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he...
who was a community organizer working on behalf of the Community Services Organization. This was a group which was affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation which was headed by
Saul AlinskySaul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
.
To further her cause, Huerta created the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA) in 1960. Through the AWA, she lobbied politicians on many issues, including allowing migrant workers without U.S. citizenship to receive public assistance and pensions and creating Spanish-language voting ballots and driver's tests. In 1962, she co-founded a workers' union with Cesar Chavez, which was later known as the United Farm Workers (UFW). The two made a great team. Chavez was the dynamic leader and speaker and Huerta was a skilled organizer and tough negotiator. Huerta was instrumental in the union's many successes, including the strikes against California grape growers in the 1960s and 1970s.
During Chavez’s participation in the Community Services Organization,
Fred RossFred Ross was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization in 1948, which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO in San Jose, CA gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he...
trained Cesar Chavez in the grassroots, door-to-door,
house meeting tacticFred Ross was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization in 1948, which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO in San Jose, CA gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he...
of organization, a tactic which was vital to the UFW’s recruiting methods. The house meeting tactic successfully established a broad base of local
Community Service OrganizationThe Community Service Organization was an important California Latino civil rights organization, most famous for training Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta...
chapters during Ross's era, and Chavez used this technique to extend the UFW's reach as well as to find up and coming organizers. During the 1950s, Cesar Chavez and
Fred RossFred Ross was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization in 1948, which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO in San Jose, CA gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he...
developed twenty-two new Community Services Organization chapters in the Mexican American neighborhoods of
San JoseSan Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
. In 1959, Chavez would claim the rank of executive director in the Community Services Organization. During this time, Chavez observed and adopted the notion of having the community become more politically involved in order to bring about the social changes that the community sought. This would be a vital tactic in Chavez’s future struggles in fighting for immigrant rights.
Cesar Chavez’s ultimate goal in his participation with the Community Services Organization and the
Industrial Areas FoundationThe Industrial Areas Foundation is a national community organizing network established in 1940 by Saul Alinsky. IAF provides training and consultation, furnishes organizers, and develops national strategy for its affiliated broad-based community organizations. There are currently 57 IAF...
was to eventually organize a union for the farm workers. Saul Alinsky did not share Chavez’s sympathy for the farm workers struggle, claiming that organizing farm workers, “was like fighting on a constantly disintegrating bed of sand.” (Alinsky, 1967)
On March 1962 at the Community Services Organization convention, Chavez proposed a pilot project for organizing farm workers which was rejected by the organization’s members. Chavez’s reaction to this led him to resign from the organization in order to pursue his goal of creating a farm workers union which would later come to be known as the National Farm Workers Association.
By 1965 the National Farm Workers Association had acquired twelve hundred members through Chavez’s person-to-person recruitment efforts which he learned from
Fred RossFred Ross was an American community organizer. He founded the Community Service Organization in 1948, which, with the support of the Industrial Areas Foundation, organized Mexican Americans in California. The CSO in San Jose, CA gave a young Cesar Chavez his first training in organizing, which he...
just a decade earlier. Out of those twelve hundred, only about two hundred paid dues. Also in 1962,
Richard ChavezRichard Estrada Chavez was an American labor leader, organizer and activist. Chavez was the younger brother of labor leader, César Chávez, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, now known as the United Farm Workers...
, the brother of Cesar Chavez, designed the black
AztecThe Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
eagleEagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
insigniaInsignia or insigne pl -nia or -nias : a symbol or token of personal power, status or office, or of an official body of government or jurisdiction...
that would become the symbol of the NFW and the UFW. Cesar Chavez chose the red and black colors used by the organization.
Although still in its infant stages, the organization lent its support to a strike by workers in the rose industry in 1965. This initial protest by the young organization resulted in a failed attempt to strike against the rose industry. That same year the farm workers who worked in the Delano fields of California wanted to strike against the growers in response to the grower’s refusal to raise wages from $1.20 to $1.40 an hour, and they sought out Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association for support. The Delano agricultural workers were majority Filipino workers who were affiliated with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee which was a charter of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. The unification of these two organizations, in an attempt to boycott table grapes which were grown in the Delano fields, resulted in the creation of the United Farm Workers of America.
Historic Complications in Organizing Farm Workers Prior to the Formation of the UFW
In the early history of American agriculture, farm workers experienced many failed attempts to organize agricultural laborers. In 1903, Japanese and Mexican farm workers attempted to come together to fight for better wages and better working conditions. This attempt to organize agricultural laborers was ignored and disbanded when organizations, such as the American Federation of Labor, neglected to support their efforts, many of which withheld assistance on the basis of race.
In 1913, the
Industrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
organized a rally at a large ranch in the rural area of Northern California which involved two thousand farm workers. This resulted in an attack against the participants of the rally by national guardsmen. As a result of the violence the two lead organizers for the Industrial Workers of the World were arrested, convicted of murder, and were sentenced to life imprisonment. It is believed that the two people arrested were wrongly convicted of the murder charges.
In the later teens and 1920’s in the United States, further attempts to organize farm laborers were undertaken by spontaneous local efforts, and some which were led by communist unions. These attempts also resulted in failure because during that time employers were not required by law to involve themselves with negotiations with their workers. During this time period, Employers could also legally fire their employees if they chose to join a union.
In 1936, the
National Labor Relations ActThe National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
was put into effect. This legislation provided most American workers the right to join unions and bargain collectively. Agricultural workers were exempt from the protection of this law. Some believe that this labor category was excluded as a result of a political tactic to gain the support of Southern politicians in the passing of this law.
In 1941, the United States Government and the Mexican Government enacted the
Bracero ProgramThe Bracero Program was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated by an August 1942 exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Mexico, for the importation of temporary contract laborers from Mexico to the United States.American president Franklin D...
. Initially, this joint project between the United States and Mexico was established during the Second World War in order to address labor shortages by allowing “guest workers” from Mexico to work in the American agricultural industry until the end of the crop harvest. Thousands of Mexican Nationals were brought north to work in the fields in the United States and growers used this opportunity to undercut domestic wages, and the Braceros were also utilized in breaking strikes from resident farm workers. This program was extended until 1964.
Texas Strike
In May 1966, California farm worker activist
Eugene NelsonEugene Nelson was a radical American writer and labor leader.He was born in Modesto, California. Growing up on farms, he twice saw his family's home and his garden taken over by bankers. He then lived in towns all over California, where his mother worked as a waitress. At age twelve, Nelson read...
traveled to Texas to rally support for the Schenley Farms boycott. While in Houston, AFL-CIO state representatives suggested that he visit Rio Grande City on the Texas-Mexico border in the lower Rio Grande Valley. Seeing the possibilities for organizing workers in the impoverished region, he quickly set about recruiting volunteers for the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) as both strikers and assistants. Other UFWOC activists joined Nelson in Rio Grande City, including Gilbert Padilla, Antonio Orendain, and
Bill Chandler-Early life:Bill Chandler played basketball at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a center on the 1915-16 and 1917-18 teams, both of which finished in first place in the Big Ten.-Coaching career:...
.
On June 1, Nelson led workers to strike demanding $1.25 as a minimum hourly wage, protesting La Casita Farms and others packing sheds. The activists also protested the hiring of "scab" labor, mostly those with green card visas from
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, who were allowed to cross the border as day workers. In the dispute, reports and allegations of vandalism to equipment, produce, and public property caused Starr County officials, along with the support of the growers, to call for additional law enforcement, which arrived in the form of the
Texas RangersThe Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas...
. Both county officials and rangers arrested protestors for secondary picketing, standing within 50 feet of one another, a practice illegal at the time. Allegations of brutality and questions of jurisdictional limits created national headlines in what came to be known as “La Huelga.”
On July 4, members of UFWOC, strikers, and members of the clergy set out on a march to
AustinAustin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
to demand the $1.25 minimum wage and other improvements for farm workers. Press coverage intensified as the marchers made their way north in the summer heat. Politicians, members of the AFL-CIO, and the Texas Council of Churches accompanied the protestors. Gov. John Connally, who had refused to meet them in Austin, traveled to New Braunfels with then House Speaker Ben Barnes, and Attorney General Waggoner Carr to intercept the march and inform strikers that their efforts would have no effect.
Protestors arrived in Austin in time for a
Labor DayLabor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
rally, but no changes in law resulted. Strikes and arrests continued in Rio Grande City through 1966 into 1967. Violence increased as the spring melon crop ripened and time neared for the May harvest. In June, when beatings of two UFWOC supporters by Texas rangers surfaced, tempers flared.
At the end of June as the harvest was ending, members of the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, including Senators Harrison Williams and
Edward KennedyEdward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
, arrived in the lower Rio Grande Valley to hold hearings in Rio Grande City and
Edinburg, TexasEdinburg is a city in and the county seat of Hidalgo County, Texas, United States. The population was 77,100 at the 2010 census. The University of Texas–Pan American, the only fully accredited four-year university in the Rio Grande Valley, is located in Edinburg.Edinburg is part of the...
. The senators took their findings back to Washington as a report on pending legislation. Subsequently, the rangers left the area and the picketing ended. On September 20,
Hurricane BeulahHurricane Beulah was the second tropical storm, second hurricane, and only major hurricane during the 1967 Atlantic hurricane season. It tracked through the Caribbean, struck the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico as a major hurricane, and moved west-northwest into the Gulf of Mexico, briefly gaining...
's devastations ruined the farming industry in the Valley for the following year. One major outcome of the strikes came in the form of a 1974 Supreme Court victory in
Medrano v. Allee, limiting jurisdiction of Texas Rangers in labor disputes. Farm workers continued to organize through the 1970s on a smaller scale, under new leadership in
San Juan, TexasSan Juan is a city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States. The population in July 2008 was 33,970 since then the population of San Juan increased since 2000 by +29.5%. The name reflects that of a founding father...
, independent of
César ChávezCésar Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
.
Texas Campaign
By mid-1971 the Texas campaign was well underway. In Sept. 1971, Thomas John Wakely, recent discharge from the
United States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
joined the San Antonio office of the Texas campaign. His pay was room and board, $ 5.00 a week plus all of the
menudoThe soup Menudo is a traditional Mexican dish, made with beef stomach in a clear broth or with a red chili base . Usually, lime, chopped onions, and chopped cilantro are added, as well as crushed oregano and crushed red chili peppers...
he could eat. The menudo was provided to the UFOC staff by the families of migrant workers working the Texas fields.
TJ worked for UFOC for about 2 years and his responsibilities included organizing the Grape Boycott in San Antonio. His primary target was the H.E.B grocery store chain. In addition, he attempted to organize Hispanic farm workers working the farmers market in San Antonio — an institution at that time controlled by the corporate farms. Among his many organizing activities included an early 1972 episode where he and several other UFOC staff members who were attempting to organize warehouse workers in San Antonio were fired upon by security agents of the corporate farm owners.
In mid-1973 the San Antonio office of the UFOC was taken over by the
Brown BeretsThe Brown Berets is a Chicano nationalist activist group of young Mexican Americans that emerged during the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s and remains active to the present day. The group was seen as part of the Third Movement for Liberation. The Brown Berets focus on community organizing...
. This radicalization of the San Antonio UFOC office led to the eventual collapse of the San Antonio UFOC organizing campaign.
Recent developments
In July 2008 the farm worker Ramiro Carrillo Rodriguez, 48, died of a heat stroke. According to United Farm Workers, he is the "13th farm worker heat death since CA Governor Schwarzenegger took office" in 2003. In 2006 California's first permanent heat regulations were enacted but these regulations are not strictly enforced, the union says.
Further reading
- Bardacke, Frank. "Cesar's Ghost: Rise and Fall of the UFW." The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
. July 26, 1993. http://www.thenation.com/doc/19930726/bardacke
- Bardacke, Frank. Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. London and New York: Verso, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84467-718-4
- Ferriss, Susan; Sandoval, Ricardo; and Hembree, Diana. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998. ISBN 0156005980
- Ganz, Marshall
Marshall Ganz is a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He worked on the staff of the United Farm Workers for sixteen years before becoming a trainer and organizer for political campaigns, unions and nonprofit groups...
. Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-516201-1
- Gutierrez, David G. Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. ISBN 0520202198
- Nelson, Eugene
Eugene Nelson was a radical American writer and labor leader.He was born in Modesto, California. Growing up on farms, he twice saw his family's home and his garden taken over by bankers. He then lived in towns all over California, where his mother worked as a waitress. At age twelve, Nelson read...
. Huelga! The First One Hundred Days of the Delano Grape Strike. Delano, Calif.: Farm Worker Press, 1966.
- Pawel, Miriam. "Farmworkers Reap Little as Union Strays From Its Roots." Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
. January 8, 2006. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ufw8jan08,1,7202033.story
- Pawel, Miriam. The Union of Their Dreams. Bloomsbury Press, 2009.
- Shaw, Randy. Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-520-25107-6
External links