A

United Farm Workers of America (UFW)

ESTABLISHED: August 22, 1966
EMPLOYEES: Not made available
MEMBERS: 26,000
PAC: None

Contact Information:
ADDRESS: La Paz PO Box 62 Keene, CA 93531
PHONE: (805) 822-5571
FAX: (805) 822-6123
E-MAIL: UFWofamer@aol.com
URL: http://www.ufw.org
PRESIDENT: Arturo Rodriguez

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

The largest organization of agricultural workers in the United States, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) is a labor union devoted to improving the wages and working conditions of its members through collective bargaining and other agreements with employers. According to the organization's Web site, the UFW is fighting for "basic and simple rights" for all agricultural workers, rights which include a living wage, clean bathrooms and drinking water, job security, health insurance, and "a voice to end sexual harassment and other abuses" at the workplace.

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

The smallest unit of the UFW is the local chapter, which unites workers from a particular employer or a group of several employers. Local chapters elect a field committee headed by a secretary-general, and the field committees represent the various local chapters at the union's national convention, held every other Labor Day weekend. At the UFW National Convention delegates from the various chapters meet, receive updates on various local activities, and during alternate conventions elect the members of the UFW National Executive Board. The job of the executive board, which comprises a president, secretary-treasurer, and four vice presidents, is to create policy, budget the organization's resources, pass resolutions, and endorse candidates for various internal positions.

To administer the various activities of the union, the UFW is divided into several specialized departments which include the Public Action Department, Organizing Department, Communications Department, and Accounting Department. There are also 14 Public Action offices across the United States, a recruiting office in Los Angeles, and a second national office located in Washington, D.C. The Public Action offices coordinate local activities, boycotts, and publicity campaigns, as well as assist members by collecting union dues, managing retirement accounts, and finding employment for unemployed UFW members.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

The function of the UFW, as with all unions, is to improve the working life of its members. To a lesser extent, the UFW also works to improve working conditions for farm workers in general. The UFW's primary tool in this effort is collective bargaining.

The UFW seeks to organize farm workers into the union, so that it can represent them in negotiations with employers. Under labor laws regulating agricultural workers, if more than half of an employer's peak-level workforce signs a petition calling for a union election, by law an election must be held, with the winner obtaining the legal right to represent all the employer's workers for a minimum of one year. Having won the election, the union can assess dues and negotiate binding contracts with employers that cover issues like wages, working conditions, benefits, and grievance procedures.

Since it represents the combined influence of all of a business's employees, the UFW can usually secure higher wages and better working conditions than its members could negotiate on their own. When collective bargaining fails, the UFW may take its workers on strike until their demands are met. They may also institute a boycott. During a boycott, the union asks consumers to avoid buying certain produce or the produce of companies involved in labor disputes with the UFW.

According to the UFW, many growers actively resist efforts at unionizing their workforce through firing, threats, and other methods of intimidation. The UFW seeks to publicize anti-union activities in order to put public pressure on these businesses to allow the UFW to represent their workers. On several occasions, the UFW has organized boycotts of businesses they felt were engaging in unfair labor practices, including a boycott of non-UFW-grown California table grapes that ran from 1984 well into the 1990s. Many of these anti-union activities are prohibited by law, but the union claims such laws are poorly enforced. Accordingly, it also devotes its energies to supporting pro-union legislation and calling for stricter enforcement of the laws that protect employees and their right to unionize.

PROGRAMS

The UFW administers several programs and services for its membership. Since 1966 the union has run the National Farmworkers Service Center in Keene, California, out of which it operates a health center, a specialized housing program, and the Juan de la Cruz pension plan. These services are available for all dues-paying members of the UFW. The center also offers a comprehensive health benefits program for farm workers, the Robert F. Kennedy Medical Plan, the first such plan created in the country.

The union's Keene headquarters houses the Cesar Chávez Foundation, a nonprofit organization composed of the late labor leader's wife and family, as well as the members of the UFW's executive board. The foundation owns the rights to Chávez's name and likeness and attempts to ensure that they are used in ways consistent with UFW politics. The foundation negotiates with publishing companies, schools, and other civic groups who want to license Chávez's name or likeness for textbooks, buildings, streets, or other commemorative activities. They also review textbooks and other publications devoted to Chávez's life. In the future, the foundation plans on building a library filled with works about Chávez and the UFW.

The UFW sponsors several programs to inform the public about its efforts and encourage their support. All products grown by UFW workers are marked with the UFW symbol, a black eagle. On the UFW Web site at http://www.ufw.org, the organization provides "Action Alerts" that contain information on how to help the organization with particularly urgent issues.

BUDGET INFORMATION

The budget of the UFW is approximately $4 million, with approximately one-fifth coming from outside donations given by foundations and individual donors. Because the UFW has historically been supported mostly by donations, increasing the numbers of dues-paying members remains a top priority of the organization.

Although the AFL-CIO does not financially support the UFW, the country's largest trade union has historically contributed personnel and helped generate favorable publicity for UFW organizing campaigns, including the 1997 march through Watsonville, California, to highlight the struggle of strawberry workers.

HISTORY

The origins of the UFW can be traced back to 1951 and the passage of Public Law 78, which legalized an informal "guest worker" arrangement with Mexico. The arrangement, called the bracero system, was initiated during World War II (1939–45) when agricultural growers in California and Texas faced labor shortages and wished to offer short-term labor contracts to Mexicans.

After World War II ended, growers realized that they had become dependent on seasonal Mexican laborers, who would perform the difficult, low-paying labor that most U.S. workers would not do. From 1951 to 1964 Public Law 78 encouraged the importation of thousands of migrant Mexican workers. In 1950 67,500 workers came to the United States; by 1956 that figure had increased to 445,000.

By 1965 there were thousands of Mexican laborers working and living in California alone, many of whom worked on farms as grape harvesters. By all accounts, conditions for these workers, who were non-unionized and who often spoke little English, were not good. Grape pickers in 1965 made an average of $.90 an hour, plus ten cents per basket picked. In many cases, state laws regarding working standards were simply ignored by growers. Many workers were often expected to pay for the water they drank on the job, and no ranches offered portable field toilets. The workers' temporary housing was strictly segregated by race and often lacked indoor plumbing and cooking facilities. In addition, contractors who supplied farms with laborers abused their power, playing favorites with the workers, selecting friends for the best jobs, and sometimes accepting bribes. By the mid-1960s child labor had become rampant, as the low wages often forced entire migrant families to work in the fields.

It was largely because of these conditions that, in 1965, grape pickers in California's southern Coachella valley walked off the job. Although the bracero program had officially ended the year before, a new U.S.-Mexico agreement allowed growers to import Mexican workers as long they were paid __BODY__.25 an hour. When Coachella growers attempted to pay the local Filipino workers less than the rate for Mexican workers, the Filipinos went on strike. Because grapes in this region of Southern California were ripening and needed to be picked and taken to market quickly, growers relented and paid all the workers __BODY__.25, but they still refused to recognize the workers' attempt to form a union for collective bargaining purposes.

California Workers Unite

As the end of summer approached, grapes were ripening in the fields around Delano, California, and workers at nearly 30 farms, many of whom had already worked in the south and received higher wages, again went on strike for higher wages, better working conditions, and union recognition from their employers. At this point two unions—the National Farm Workers Association, founded by Cesar Chávez in 1962, and the Agriculture Workers Organizing Committee, founded by Dolores Huerta in 1959—joined forces to recruit and represent both the Chicano and the Filipino workers in the area involved in the 1965 strike. Soon after the strike began, Chávez's union called upon the public to boycott grapes without a union label. On March 17, 1966, strikers marched 340 miles from Delano to Sacramento in order to publicize the use of dangerous pesticides and other mistreatment of farm laborers. They faced frustrated, embattled growers determined to break the strike by employing outside laborers and sometimes thugs to intimidate workers and strikers. In August of 1966, the unions merged and joined the AFL-CIO as the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC). The new union received organizing funds from the AFL-CIO, as well as strike support from other unions, including food, cash, and office equipment.

The strikes and organizing efforts continued, with the UFWOC determined to convince all grape laborers, including those employed by growers to replace the strikers, to join the union and support the strike. In 1966 the union secured contracts with two of the largest grape growers in the area, Schenley and DiGiorgio, that included an arrangement for the first benefit plan for workers; an agreement to ban the use of two dangerous pesticides deemed hazardous to workers; and a promise to provide farm workers with clean drinking water, hand washing facilities, and rest periods. This was the first collective bargaining agreement between farm workers and growers in the continental United States.

Despite that success, the UFWOC faced another obstacle to their organizing campaign when a rival union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, offered its services to grape growers as a more conservative representative for field workers. With controversy surrounding the question of who had the legal right to represent grape workers in union negotiations with growers, California Governor Pat Brown appointed an outside arbitrator who ordered a decisive election resulting in victory for the UFWOC in 1966. However, many growers chose instead to sign contracts with the Teamsters, who offered terms more favorable to the growers and who the UFWOC accused of intimidating workers into joining their union and breaking UFWOC-sponsored strikes.

In 1968 UFWOC leader Chávez began a 25-day fast to publicize a grape boycott and affirm the union's commitment to nonviolence on the picket lines. By 1970 televised accounts of picket-line violence, a continued boycott, and a host of bad publicity forced many grape growers to accept contracts with the UFWOC. At the end of a prolonged series of strikes and an often violent competition with the Teamsters, the UFWOC effectively organized most of the industry, claiming 50,000 dues-paying members—the most ever represented by a union in California. Contracts with growers included provisions for health clinics and health plans for workers, protective measures for the use of pesticides in the field, and extended state unemployment coverage for workers.

UFW Takes on Lettuce and Strawberry Industries

In the 1970s UFW membership peaked at about 100,000, and the union turned its attention to the lettuce industry, where lettuce growers were ignoring workplace elections for the UFWOC and negotiating contracts, or so-called "sweet heart deals" with other, less demanding unions like the Teamsters. The union called for a boycott of California lettuce even as some growers became more aggressive, threatening and firing workers involved in organizing for the UFWOC. In 1972 the UFWOC became the UFW, and after three more years of labor unrest and renewed boycotts against both the lettuce and grape industries, the UFW and California's governor persuaded the California General Assembly to pass the historic Agriculture Labor Relations Act (ALRA). The legislation created the Agriculture Labor Relations Board (ALRB) to mediate labor disputes and enforce a whole new set of labor laws designed specifically for agricultural workers. Though the 1935 Wagner Act legalized unions and collective bargaining, the law ignored agricultural laborers, many of whom are seasonal and migratory. The ALRA granted workers the right to elect unions by ballot, prohibited growers from firing workers for union activities, established minimum health and sanitation standards, and established the ALRB to investigate charges of labor law violations.

The passage of the ALRA in 1975 represented the zenith of the UFW's power and influence. By the 1980s the union's membership and political clout had declined, a 1984 boycott against grapes had yielded little progress with growers, and much of the organization's original leadership had left. By 1987 the UFW held just three contracts with major growers in California, down from 162 contracts in 1982 and 115 in 1984.

On April 23, 1993, long-time UFW president Chávez died and was replaced by his son-in-law, Arturo Rodriguez. Rodriguez, a long-time member of the union, attempted to renew the union's organizing efforts by departing from the UFW's traditional strategy of organizing workers farm by farm. Instead, the UFW targeted entire industries, and won 18 new contracts alone in 1994. With the help of the AFL-CIO, Rodriguez and the UFW targeted the $650 million-a-year strawberry industry, including growers, shippers, and grocery stores. The campaign against the strawberry growers continued into the 1990s, its success making the UFW one of the AFL-CIO's fastest growing member unions.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

Throughout its history, the UFW's greatest struggle has been to win the right to represent farm workers. Growers often maintain that their employees do not want or need a union, while the UFW claims instead that these growers are intimidating their workforce and stifling attempts to organize. One example in northern Florida is Quincy Farms, a major mushroom producer. In 1996 the company discharged 84 workers and arrested 24 for trespassing when those workers staged a lunch-hour demonstration requesting safer working conditions and higher wages. By 1998 the company still refused to recognize that the majority of its workers desired a union, even though the UFW claimed that 76 percent of the workforce expressed an interest in doing so. Workers have complained of poor pay, lack of sick leave, expensive health insurance, and high accident rates for pickers, who must climb and balance on boxes stacked five to seven feet high in order to trim and pluck mushrooms. A UFW boycott of Quincy Farm's "Prime" brand of mushrooms was organized to put pressure on the grower.

The UFW has also been involved in a long-running labor dispute with grape growers in Sonoma County, California. The organization has been boycotting all nonunion California table grapes since 1984, as a means of advancing its demands of a ban on the use of certain pesticides used in growing grapes, free and fair union elections, and good-faith contract negotiations after the adoption of a union by workers. The UFW claims many growers still illegally threaten workers from joining or supporting the UFW, have delayed signing contracts with the union, or gone out of business and emerged as new corporate entities in order to avoid binding union contracts. Gallo Wine, for instance, avoided signing a union contract with the UFW for several years, although workers elected the UFW as their representative in 1994.

Case Study: Organizing the Strawberry Industry

In the late 1990s the top issue for the UFW became unionizing approximately 55,000 workers who harvest strawberries for the $584 million strawberry industry. Efforts were focused on Watsonville, California's Coastal Berry Co., the nation's largest employer of strawberry pickers. Many growers and an outspoken group of workers claim that the majority of strawberry workers in California do not want to belong to, or be represented by the UFW. Opponents of the UFW point out that though strawberry workers earned an average of $6.70 an hour in 1996, the rate at larger farms like Coastal Berry varies from $7.50 to $11.00 an hour. The workers there receive health benefits but no pension. According to industry representatives, this means that Coastal Berry's workers are among the highest-paid field workers in the nation, and see little benefit in unionization.

A UFW-led coalition of labor, civil rights, religious, and environmental groups claims that workers are being intimidated into rejecting the UFW and that despite wage increases, the workers still work 10 to 12 hour days, are often forced to use dirty drinking water and bathrooms, are still exposed to toxic pesticides, have little health insurance, and are often fired for involvement with the UFW.

The UFW has made their strawberry organizing a national issue, and has enlisted the help of labor leaders and other activists. With their "Five Cents for Fairness Campaign," the union attempts to enlist the public's support, explaining that a mere five-cent increase in the price of a pint of strawberries could result in a 50 percent increase in workers' pay. In support of this campaign, groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the Sierra Club helped form the National Strawberry Commission for Worker's Rights, an organization devoted to sending activists and volunteers to supermarkets in order to distribute pledges to consumers and ask managers to support the right of strawberry workers to hold free elections and bargain for union contracts. In 1997 over 3,000 supermarkets across the country had signed pledges supporting the workers. To create more publicity for the campaign, on June 17, 1998, activist Gloria Steinem and the UFW organized a march in New York City protesting working conditions in California's strawberry fields.

In Watsonville itself, the UFW worked to unite Coastal Berry's workforce behind them, and called for union elections. At times violence broke out between pro- and anti-UFW groups. One group of anti-UFW workers formed their own organization, called the Coastal Berry Farm Workers Committee. This group called for union elections at Coastal Berry, presenting itself as a second union, an alternative to the UFW.

From the start, the UFW claimed that the Coastal Berry Farm Workers Committee was a sham. The Committee, claimed the UFW, was developed and financially supported by the growers themselves, in violation of California law, in an attempt to take control of the unionization process. This, as well as the violence and intimidation that the UFW claimed was occurring at Coastal Berry in order to discourage employees from supporting the UFW, led the union to stay out of the July 24, 1998, election. The final tally was 523 votes in favor of representation by the Coastal Berry Farm Workers Committee, and 410 votes for no representation at all.

The UFW immediately challenged the election as illegal due to the intimidation of workers, and claimed that the Coastal Berry Farm Workers Committee and the growers had conspired to mislead the public about the nature of the committee. Meanwhile, it was discovered that 152 Coastal Berry employees had been left off the voting roll and had therefore not had a chance to vote in the election. For this reason, California's ALRB threw out the election on November 5, 1998. The Coastal Berry Farm Workers Committee appealed this decision, but doubts about that group's legitimacy continued, with the UFW producing bank records that seemed to indicate that growers were funding the Committee.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The UFW's future looks much the same as its present. As the strawberry industry demonstrates, the UFW's greatest struggle is to organize farm workers behind them. The union will continue to use its industry-wide organizing approach, which, while so far proving unsuccessful in the strawberry industry, has helped the organization to unionize 14 new farms and gain 6,000 new members since 1994. The UFW also hopes to develop a better relationship with California ALRB, which the UFW claims developed a pro-growers stance in the 1980s and early 1990s.

GROUP RESOURCES

Although the UFW does not offer a national publication, its various public action offices in cities around the country periodically publish newsletters and pamphlets covering the union's activities and boycotts. In addition to these publications, the National Farmworkers Service Center in Keene, California, operates several Spanish radio stations called Radio Campesina, one broadcasting out of Bakersfield, California, and the other operating in Phoenix, Arizona. The stations offer Spanish-speaking listeners programming and music, community service messages, and historical information about the UFW and its struggles.

On their Web site at http://www.ufw.org the union offers a list of basic grocery-store items and the brand names endorsed by the union. The lists provide the names of companies who have contracts with the UFW and who are not currently engaged in labor disputes with the union. The Web site also has information on the UFW's local branch offices.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

The UFW puts out many publications in support of its activities. Some of them, such as Five Cents for Fairness: The Case for Change in the Strawberry Fields, are available free of charge on the UFW Web site, http://www.ufw.org. Others, such as the Cesar Chávez Curriculum, a comprehensive teaching guide and lesson plan on the life of Chávez that includes a video and worksheets, can be ordered on the Web site; by mail at UFW, P.O. Box 62, Keene, CA, 93531; or by phone at (805) 822-5571.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bacon, David. "Face Off in Watsonville, Strawberry Workers Pick Sides." Progressive, August 1997.

Barger, Walter K. The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest; Social Change and Adaptation among Migrant Farmworkers. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1994.

De Ruiz, Dana Catherine, and Richard Larios. La Causa: The Migrant Farmworker Story. Austin: Raintree Steck-Vaugh, 1993.

Ferriss, Susan, and Ricardo Sandoval. The Fight in the Fields. New York: Harcourt, 1997.

Henshaw, Jake. "Lawmakers, UFW Fighting Union Election." San Jose Mercury News, 22 July 1998.

Hornblower, Margot. "Picking a New Fight." Time 25 November 1996.

Meisters, Dick. A Long Time Coming: The Struggle to Unionize America's Farm Workers. New York: Macmillan, 1977.

Taylor, Ronald. Chávez and the Farm Workers. Boston: Beacon Press, 1975.

Wells, Miriam, J. Strawberry Fields: Politics, Class, and Work in California Agriculture. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1996.

Zachery, G. Pascal. "United Farm Workers Discover New Life." Wall Street Journal, 19 December 1995.