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CHAVEZ, CESAR 1927-1993

LABOR LEADER; FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA

Migrant Years

The son of Mexican immigrants, Cesar Chavez saw his parents lose their small farm in Yuma, Arizona, in the late 1930s. With no other possibilities, the family headed for California and joined the ranks of migrant workers traveling throughout the state picking such crops as apricots, figs, grapes, lettuce, peas, or tomatoes. But once knowing the independence of owning a farm, the Chavez family was not as docile as many other field laborers. Chavez remembered: "We were probably one of the strikingest families in California, the first ones to leave the fields if anyone shouted Huelga (Spanish for strike)!" The migratory life was hard on the young Chavez; constant travel made education difficult, and many of the Anglo teachers openly disdained such children. Together, these factors forced Chavez to drop out of school after the end of the eighth grade. Wishing to get off the land, he joined the navy during World War II, but racism kept him in menial jobs. Out of the service in 1946, Chavez returned to the only life he knew—migrant farm work in Delano, California (in the state's Central Valley).

Early Organizing

In 1952 Chavez landed a job in a San Jose lumberyard, and he and his young family took up residence in Sal Si Puedes (get out if you can), the Mexican barrio of the city. Here Chavez was introduced to the ideas of social justice by Father Donald McDonnell and the self-help social-service group, the Community Service Organization (CSO). By the end of that year he was a full-time organizer for the CSO. Just six years later Chavez was appointed its general director. Under his leadership the CSO became the most powerful Mexican-American political organization in the state. While establishing a CSO chapter in Oxnard, California, Chavez became convinced that work issues were most important to the Chicano community. When the CSO rejected his idea of forming a farmworkers union, he broke with the association in 1962.

National Farm Workers to United Farm Workers

Now thirty-five years old, Chavez created the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). After three years of organizing, he led his small union to strike in a show of solidarity for Filipino grape pickers in September 1965. This Delano strike soon spread from its origins against table-grape growers to include many of California's leading wineries, and Chavez's use of nonviolent tactics brought the conflict national attention. Because traditional picketing could not keep scabs out of the fields, Chavez adopted another strategy—the economic boycott. To keep his movement in the public eye, Chavez staged a grueling three-hundred-mile march from Delano to Sacramento, and later he fasted for three weeks to rededicate the union to nonviolence. In 1966 his NFWA merged with an AFL-CIO affiliate to establish the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC). After five years of struggle the economic impact of the boycott pressured the growers to settle. The UFWOC obtained contracts with twenty-six growers; this accounted for nearly two-thirds of the California grape crop.

Aftermath

Soon after his victory over the grape growers Chavez again employed the boycott against lettuce growers who were using nonunion labor. Here he attained only limited success, however, largely because the Teamsters were now competing with the UFWOC (in 1972 the AFL-CIO upgraded its status from an organizing committee to a full-fledged affiliate, the United Farm Workers of America) for members. From 1972 to 1974 membership dwindled from nearly sixty thousand to only five thousand. But Chavez continued to work long hours for La Causa (as the farmworkers' movement became called), and his efforts were rewarded. From 1964 to 1980 real wages of California migrant workers increased 70 percent, health-care benefits were provided, and a formal grievance procedure was established. By 1975 he also helped obtain passage of the country's first agricultural-labor-relations act in California. This legislation guaranteed farm laborers the right to organize and bargain collectively. Although membership was up again by the 1980s, the UFWs star seemed to be fading. Yet Cesar Chavez remained important; he had organized the once-thought-unorganizable migrant Mexican-American farmworkers, brought them national attention, and won for them the rights enjoyed by other American workers.