Founding of the UFW speaking at the Delano UFW−United Farm Workers rally in Delano, California, June 1972 In 1952,
César Chávez met
Fred Ross, who was a community organizer working on behalf of the Community Service Organization. In 1959, Chávez achieved the rank of executive director in the Community Service Organization. He established professional relationships with local community organizations that aimed to empower the working class population by encouraging them to become more politically active. One of these was the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA). Dolores Huerta created the AWA in 1960.
Larry Itliong was a Filipino American labor organizer who forefronted the grape strike in Coachella Valley that led to the Delano Grape Strike of 1965. He became assistant director of the UFW. Chávez was the leader and also a gifted public speaker. Huerta was a skilled organizer and negotiator. César Chávez chose the red and black colors used by the organization. By 1965, the National Farm Workers Association had acquired twelve hundred members through Chávez's person-to-person recruitment efforts, which he had learned from Fred Ross a decade earlier. Out of those twelve hundred, only about two hundred paid dues. 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 Chávez and the National Farm Workers Association for support. By 1967, the UFW advanced public support by initiating a focus on the safety implications of pesticide susceptibility. The union aimed to link farmworker safety and consumer health through DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), leveraging support from environmental groups to form collaborative campaigns. Kennedy's connection to and support of the UFW helped to give national momentum to the grape strike. When Kennedy began to campaign in the Democratic primary, the UFW suspended all strikes to campaign alongside him, leading to high turnout amongst them and their allies. The assassination of Kennedy greatly affected UFW members and their communities. Farm workers in Delano held a mass in his honor.
Historic complications in organizing farm workers prior to UFW formation In the early history of American agriculture, farmworkers 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, often withholding assistance on the basis of race. In 1913, the
Industrial Workers of the World organized a rally of two thousand farm workers at a large ranch in a rural area of Northern California. This resulted in an attack by National Guardsmen against participants. As a result of the violence, the two lead organizers for the Industrial Workers of the World were arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Some believe the two people arrested were wrongly convicted. However, when they joined the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), led by Larry Itliong, in a grape-strike in 1965, the group soon took on the characteristics of a trade union and gained official union status with the AFL–CIO. While male activists held leadership roles and more authority, the women activists participated in volunteering and teaching valuable skills to individuals of the Latino community. Among the women who engaged in activism for labor rights, traditional and non traditional patterns of activism existed. Mexican-American women like
Dolores Huerta used their education and resources to arrange programs at the grassroots level, sustaining and leading members into the labor movement. As the sister-in-law of César Chávez, Huerta had great influence over the direction that it took. By 1973, Huerta began to act as a lobbyist for the UFW in the California State congress. During this period, she testified in favor of both Latino and Latina voting rights as well as further protections for farm workers. It was most common for Chicana activists and female labor union members to be involved in administrative tasks for the early stages of UFW. Women like
Helen Chávez were important in responsibilities such as credit union bookkeeping and behind the scenes advising. Still, both women along with other Chicana activists participated in picketing with their families in the face of police intimidation and racial abuse. Keeping track of union services and membership were traditionally responsibilities given to female organizers and it was integral to the institutional survival of the UFW, but it has gone much less recognized throughout history due to the male led strikes receiving majority public attention. Recent developments have come to light with accusations of sexual abuse against Cesar Chavez. One victim in particular, Dolores Huerta, was a well known representative within the UFW’s movement, and had also made allegations against Chavez. recent events have shown that more victims are coming out to speak against Cesar Chavez as well.
Texas strike In May 1966, California farm worker activist
Eugene Nelson traveled to Texas and organized local farmworkers into the Independent Workers' Association. At the time, some melon workers lacked access to freshwater while working in the fields, some lacked sanitary facilities for human waste, and some were present in the fields as crop dusters dropped pesticides on the crops. These problems created a hazardous workspace and altered the environment for workers and the union. This situation enabled the UFW to argue that sustainable agricultural initiatives are not merely a regulatory obstacle but a basic civil right for workers. 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. Violence increased as the spring melon crop ripened and time neared for the May harvest. In June, when the 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 Kennedy, arrived in the lower Rio Grande Valley to hold hearings in Rio Grande City and
Edinburg, Texas. 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 Beulah's devastations ruined the farming industry in the Valley for the following year. One major outcome of the strikes was a 1974 Supreme Court victory in
Medrano v. Allee, which limited the jurisdiction of the Texas Rangers in labor disputes. Farm workers continued to organize through the 1970s on a smaller scale, under new leadership in
San Juan, Texas, independent of
César Chávez.
Texas campaign By mid-1971, the Texas campaign was well underway. In Sept. 1971, Thomas John Wakely, recently discharged from the
United States Air Force, joined the
San Antonio office of the Texas campaign. His pay was room and board, $5.00 a week, plus all of the
menudo 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, during which he organized 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 was 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 Berets. This radicalization of the San Antonio UFOC office led to the eventual collapse of the San Antonio UFOC organizing campaign. 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 granting the Teamsters the right to represent the workers who had been UFW members. 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, partially due to incompetent management of the hiring halls it had established that seemed to favor some workers over others. In 1972, the UFW opened the Terronez Clinic in Delano, California. The clinic was primarily staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses who recently graduated from medical school, along with an administrative staff made up of local supporters. By the end of their first year, the clinic had served an estimated 23,000 farm workers and their families. Due to its success, the UFW opened other clinics in Calexico and Salinas. By 1978, the UFW Executive Board decided to end the programs due to dwindling resources. To maintain union membership and strength, the UFW began to control local chapters' activities, leading some longtime staffers to resign. Prominent Filipino activist
Philip Vera Cruz also left the UFW in 1977 after Chavez accepted an invitation from the then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos to visit the Philippines. In 1977, the Teamsters signed an agreement with the UFW promising to end their efforts to represent farm workers. Due to internal squabbles, most of the union's original leadership left or were forced out, except for Chávez and Huerta. Villanueva joined César Chávez in organizing the boycotts and strikes that occurred in Washington state. On September 21, 1986, Villanueva became the first president of the Washington state UFW. He was a great leader for the UFW activists in Washington since he led many strikes and influenced people to join the United Farm Workers movement. People who were against the movement started threatening leaders of the group such as Villanueva, but he continued organizing rallies. Even though there was some success in Washington state, the overall UFW membership started decreasing towards the end of the 1980s. During this time, there were many attempts by the Reagan administration to deregulate
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). After being placed in office, there were several budget cuts and many people within this field lost their jobs. Within that time, organizations such as OSHA began to show a decline in workplace inspections leaving business practices to their own devices on such matters. Many efforts were put into place to try and defund pesticide and agricultural regulations. One such person, interested in this change was running governor, at the time,
George Deukmejian. Deukmejian tried to show that he was on the growers’ side of the matters and went as far as to label the workers union as agitators and vandals. Not long after, the agricultural associations began to fund his campaign. True to his word, when he was elected governor, he pushed a number of “grower-backed” bills. In an attempt to align people with his cause and gain more backing, Cesar Chavez began a boycott under his leadership, branded as a movement in favor of “safe food”. This boycott went directly against the current governor of that time. Pesticides were not addressed until a year later, in 1982. This changed when a major scare over pesticides became well known in California at the time; watermelons would make the farm workers and consumers very ill. The UFW was outraged to hear about the use of illegal pesticides, and Chávez decided to fast for 36 days to protest the dangers pesticides had on farm workers and their community. This influenced the legislature in California to create more food testing programs, resulting in pesticide-free produce, and to encourage organic farming.
Recent developments In July 2008, farm worker Ramiro Carrillo Rodriguez, 48, died of a
heat stroke. According to United Farm Workers, he was 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 were not strictly enforced, the union contended. In 2013, farm workers working at a Fresno facility, for California's largest peach producer, voted to de-certify the United Farm Workers. News of this decertification was released to the public in 2018.
César Chávez is a film released in March 2014, directed by
Diego Luna about the life of the Mexican-American
labor leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers. The film stars
Michael Peña as Chávez. Co-producer
John Malkovich also co-stars in the role of an owner of a large industrial grape farm who leads the sometimes violent opposition to Chávez's organizing efforts. The Darigold Dozen are 12 dairy farm workers from Washington who filed a lawsuit against Ruby Ridge Dairy in Pasco where they are employed, for wage theft. The UFW held a five-day fast on September 20, 2018, outside the Darigold headquarters to protest the poor work condition and treatments the Darigold farmers face and to bring attention to the Darigold Dozen. On May 8, 2019, the employers of the Darigold Dozen dropped their countersuit against their former employees and dropped a lawsuit that they had filed against the UFW. ==Geography==