Milwaukee, WI – Sept. 8, 2015 will mark the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the grape strike in Delano, California. On that day in 1965 the farmworkers in the Delano area went on strike to demand a raise to $1.25 per hour (the minimum wage at the time, which did not apply to farmworkers), an improvement in working conditions and for union recognition.

Leaders of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which helped organize the Delano farmworkers, included Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz. The AWOC was affiliated with the AFL-CIO and was mostly composed of Filipino American workers.

The AWOC approached the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) to join the strike in Delano. The NFWA was an association of mainly Chicano and Mexicano farmworkers that was founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, who came out of the Community Services Organization (CSO). The NFWA and AWOC formed an alliance of Filipino and Mexican farmworkers to struggle against the grape growers in Delano. They were able to quickly convince the grape growers to increase the wages of the workers but growers refused to recognize their union.

Soon after, the strikers called for a boycott of all grapes that did not have a union label. The boycott hurt the pockets of giant agribusiness corporations like Schenley Industries and DiGiorgio Corporation. In addition to the boycott, the historic 340 mile march from Delano to Sacramento was another action that NFWA and AWOC organized. The march gave the struggle of the farmworkers national attention and added more pressure on the grape growers.

NFWA and AWOC merged to become United Farm Workers Organizing Committee – UFWOC – in 1966, and then later became the United Farm Workers (UFW). The striking farmworkers raised their historic flag of a black eagle on a red background, with the eagle representing both the struggle of Chicano and Mexicano people in the U.S. and the red flag the historic strike symbol of workers in struggle.

After five years of struggle, both Schenley and DiGiorgio conceded to the demands of the farmworkers and gave the Delano farmworkers union recognition with decent contracts. The UFW gained 50,000 members in the 1970s and became the first union to successfully organize the agriculture industry in California, after more than 60 years of strikes and other labor struggles in the fields.

The UFW struggle also inspired the Chicano movement of the late 1960s and attracted many urban youth to support the boycott and mass rallies. In East Los Angeles, the Brown Berets picketed large supermarkets to support the grape boycott and protested at the Los Angeles Central Market. The farmworkers’ struggle also attracted broad support from other oppressed nationality communities in California and across the U.S., especially among Asian Americans. There was also support from the trade unions, many Catholics and other Christian churches and students.

Masao Suzuki, who was a student organizer at U.C. Berkeley in the early 1970s, told Fight Back! of the impact of his visit to Delano in 1972 to help build Agbayani Village, a retirement home for older union members. “My trip was very intense, from doing construction work in the heat which would reach 100 degrees during the day, to seeing the violence that the growers’ thugs and the local sheriffs inflicted on the striking workers, killing two of them. The farmworkers’ stories of their lifetime of toil and struggle inspired me to commit myself to the liberation of the working class and oppressed peoples.”

#MilwaukeeWI #UnitedFarmWorkers #Delano #grapeStrike

Los Angeles, CA – The movie Cesar Chavez by Mexican actor/producer Diego Luna again puts the public eye on the injustices and harsh working conditions of the mostly Mexicano farm workers in the U.S. It also covers the early history of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) and its first strike and the successful grape boycott against the growers. The movie was funded by mostly Mexican investors and shot entirely in Sonora, Mexico, as it was not a priority for U.S. film makers.

The movie mainly covers the first 10 years of the UFW farmworkers struggles, beginning with the grape strike in 1965. The boycott that followed gained national support and helped to win the first UFW union contracts in 1970. The movie goes on to show the role of Cesar Chavez, his family and Dolores Huerta working with others to start the UFW. It does point out the important role of Filipino farmworkers who started the famous strike in August of 1965. In one short scene it shows Chavez talking with farm workers at a house meeting, asking questions about the work conditions and asking them what they want to do. He was known for his one-on-one organizing skills. It does show briefly his start with the Community Service Organization (CSO), an early Mexican-American civil rights group.

One thing I enjoyed about the movie was seeing Chicano and Latino actors and actresses playing important Chicano historical figures in our fight against racist injustice. Chavez is played by Michael Peña, who I met on the set of Walkout where he played teacher Sal Castro. America Ferrera plays Chavez’s wife, Helen, and Rosario Dawson is the vocal UFW leader Dolores Huerta. The movie does point out the important role of the women in the founding and actions of the UFW.

Overall, Cesar Chavez was a good movie, especially for those who know very little of this period of struggle in our Chicano history. The movie shows the brutality of the police and large ranch owners toward the Mexicano and Chicano farmworkers. It shows the oppressive working and living conditions of farmworkers in the fields and crowded living conditions in the farm camps with very low pay. When the farm workers organized with the UFW they faced the power of the state, including court injunctions, police brutality and mass arrests.

On a personal note, I met Cesar twice, once at a grocery market boycott activity and later at Talpa Church in Boyle Heights for a 75-year birthday event for Fred Ross, who had worked for Saul Alinsky and had helped to recruit Chavez to the movement. Chavez always appeared a quite unassuming person.

What the movie did not show was the support and solidarity the boycott received from the Chicano movement, with many organizations supporting the UFW, especially in the large cities. We saw the UFW as part of the Chicano movement and our struggle for equality. The Brown Berets joined the UFW picketing at the Los Angeles produce market to protest the delivery of grapes. Also the Chicano student group La Vida Nueva – The New Life – at East L.A. College protested and demanded that grapes be taken out of the student cafeteria.

As a short movie it lacked the total story of Chavez and the UFW and did not show the later leadership weaknesses and the decline of the union, which has recently been documented in various new books.

¡Viva la Huelga, Viva la Union!

Carlos Montes is a longtime activist in the Chicano community in Los Angeles and was a leading member of the Brown Berets in the 1960s.

#LosAngelesCA #Labor #Movies #ChicanoLatino #CarlosMontes #CesarChavez #UnitedFarmWorkers #UFW #DoloresHuerta #DiegoLuna #MichaelPeña