United Farm Workers
The United Farm Workers (UFW) is a labor union that advocates for the rights of agricultural workers, particularly focusing on the needs of Mexican and Mexican American laborers in the United States. Founded in 1962 by César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and others, the UFW emerged from the National Farm Workers Association and was established in response to the lack of union representation and legal protections for farmworkers. The union's efforts were rooted in social justice, drawing support from various communities, including students and church members, who saw the struggle for fair wages and working conditions as a moral issue.
The UFW gained prominence through notable actions such as the Delano Grape Strike and nationwide boycotts, employing nonviolent tactics inspired by leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Despite facing challenges like internal conflicts and external opposition from other unions, the UFW achieved significant milestones, including the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which recognized collective bargaining rights for farmworkers. Although membership has declined significantly since its peak in the 1970s, the UFW remains active in representing workers, conducting public education on issues affecting migrant laborers, and advocating for reforms in labor laws and environmental protections.
United Farm Workers
Using a social justice platform, the United Farm Workers union won collective bargaining rights for previously unorganized Filipino and Latino agricultural workers and helped create the Latino civil rights movement. César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and others formed the National Farm Workers Association, the precursor to the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, in 1962. The founders emerged from the Community Service Organization (CSO), a Mexican American self-help association based in Los Angeles.
Like the Civil Rights movement in the United States, the UFW received much support from young people, students, and church members who saw agricultural workers’ call for better wages, higher standards in working and sanitary conditions, and union recognition as moral and social justice issues. In the 1960s, a majority of US farmworkers were Mexican or Mexican American. Unlike other occupations, agricultural work was not covered under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) and thus was not protected under the aegis of the National Labor Relations Board. Major unions were not interested in organizing migratory Hispanic workers. The UFW was developed in response to this lack of legal protection or union advocacy. Its approach was based on a platform of philosophical tactics developed by Chávez, who was a student of the nonviolent teachings of Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition to strikes and picketing, the UFW used fasting, mass consumer boycotts, and peaceful demonstration to publicize their cause and exert pressure on growers.
In 1965, the UFW joined the Delano Grape Strike against major California grape growers. Chávez sent letters and telegrams to the growers, offering to negotiate contracts setting minimum pay rates and specifying several other conditions of work, and organized the first of a series of national boycotts of grapes and wine. A three-hundred-mile march from Delano, California, to the state capital of Sacramento began in 1966 and ended with a rally at the state’s capitol building on Easter Sunday. The march was patterned after the Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, only a few years before. The march combined the penitence and pilgrimage traditions of Mexican and Filipino culture and Catholic religion with the political purposes of the union. The boycott received wide public support from coast to coast, and union victory in the grape fields came in 1970 with contracts signed with major table grape growers. Organizing then shifted to lettuce fields, with a major boycott campaign focused on iceberg lettuce.
The early 1970s were characterized by backlashes against the UFW due to internal leadership conflicts, pushback from undocumented workers, interference by the Teamsters labor union, and a lack of local representation. However, by 1974 there was a resurgence of strength, and new contracts were signed with growers. Renewed pressure resulted in the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (1975), the first law that recognized the collective bargaining rights of farmworkers. The UFW’s effectiveness declined in the 1980s as antiunion and anti-immigrant sentiment increased under federal and state Republican administrations, undercutting the UFW’s organizing power, and the Agricultural Labor Relations Board worked in the interests of growers.
Although overall membership declined in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, from around 60,000 members in the 1970s to around 5,500 members in 2023, and Chávez’s charismatic leadership was lost with his death in 1993, the UFW continued to represent workers, lead boycotts, and lobby legislatures and Congress. The Citizenship Participation Day Department, the political wing of the UFW, continued to provide testimony and conduct public education programs about immigration laws, environmental issues surrounding the use of pesticides, and the health concerns of migrant workers.
Bibliography
Bruns, Roger. Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Movement. Greenwood, 2011.
“Fight in the Fields - The Film.” Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers' Struggle, PBS, www.fightinthefields.net/film.html. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.
“The Future of Farm Workers.” America Magazine: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture, vol. 203, no. 3, Aug. 2010, p. 4. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=7bdbea79-e439-3a72-b454-6499d023cc0f. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.
Hudock, Barry. “Cesar’s Choice.” America Magazine: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture, vol. 207, no. 5, Aug. 2012, pp. 15–18. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=6bd01e95-4ef7-3060-96e6-5dd15dfbc7db. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.
Karlamangla, Soumya. “Behind the Story: Can U.F.W. Make a Comeback?” The New York Times, 22 Mar. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/us/behind-the-story-can-ufw-make-a-comeback. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.
“Our Vision.” United Farm Workers, ufw.org/about-us/our-vision/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.
“UFW History.” United Farm Workers, ufw.org/research/history/ufw-history/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2024.