Introduction
It is worth noting that before the United Farm Workers Union, farmers worked overtime, cultivating the land and harvesting crops to ensure that people in the country and around the world had sufficient food. However, their work was not highly valued, and farmers needed to earn more money to provide a decent life for their families. Therefore, there was a need to create an organization that would address the needs of farmers. Thus, it is essential to examine the creation of the United Farm Workers Union by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, as well as its activities.
Creation and Activities of the United Farm Workers Union
To protect the rights of workers and farmers, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) was established in California. Accordingly, this association became the predecessor of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW). Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta were particularly active in efforts to protect the rights of agricultural workers. They advocated for the peaceful resolution of disputes without conflict situations and actions (United Farm Workers Union 1).
Meanwhile, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and other activists drew upon Catholic social teaching and civil rights rhetoric to establish the NFWA. In this way, activists were able to organize people to participate in marches and boycotts, drawing the attention of ordinary people and government officials to the farmers’ problems (United Farm Workers Union 2). They attempted to secure labor contracts offering higher wages and improved working conditions for farm workers.
It is crucial to note that only actions such as marches and boycotts were effective mechanisms for restoring rights. Therefore, in the 1960s, California agriculture was largely dependent on a corporatized agricultural production system supported by political allies (United Farm Workers Union 3). As a result, workers, predominantly immigrants, were hired for low wages.
Farmers also lived and worked in poor conditions, which led to frequent illnesses and deaths. This can be explained by the fact that they did not have enough food, worked with chemicals, and women suffered from sexual violence (United Farm Workers Union 3). Accordingly, farm laborers had reasons to support Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta’s idea of creating an organization that would protect their rights.
The first achievement of the workers was the creation of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC). This committee was established in 1966 through cooperation between the Philippine Agricultural Workers’ Organizing Committee and the National Farm Workers’ Association (United Farm Workers Union). However, the important thing about this was that the farmworkers’ union had started to work widely with the support of religious organizations, students, and politicians who fought for the respect of people’s rights.
Moreover, the UFWOC immediately began activities and held a series of well-known events aimed at protecting the rights of agricultural workers. The UFWOC successfully orchestrated a consumer boycott of grapes from 1966 to 1970, organizing protests outside supermarkets in the US and Canada, and disseminating information about the campaign in Western Europe (United Farm Workers’ Union, 5). The following years saw boycotts and strikes directed against strawberry and lettuce farmers.
Strikes often led to intervention by law enforcement and resulted in the imprisonment of participants. However, it was Dolores Huerta who, at the time, was working to negotiate labor contracts that improved conditions and benefits for workers (United Farm Workers Union 5). Accordingly, the NFWA immediately gained substantial support from its followers and established its own organizations and networks to restore workers’ rights actively.
The NFWA’s activities had already brought some success, and the number of members was constantly growing, so the question of its reorganization arose. In 1972, the organization was renamed, and its activists now operate under the name United Farm Workers (United Farm Workers, 6). This happened when the union’s branches were already operating throughout the United States and were supported by the press—the subsequent expansion of the UFW bodies concerned financial assistance to employees.
Accordingly, a federal credit union was established to provide medical care for farm workers and to provide them with social and pension benefits (United Farm Workers Union 7). Thus, the UFW was successful in restoring the fundamental rights of farm workers and is still active today. Nowadays, union disputes or lack of contracts are rarely encountered in practice.
Important People and Their Actions
Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta are two of the first activists to attempt to improve the lives and working conditions of agricultural workers. Accordingly, Cesar Chavez was an agricultural worker from a Mexican family of origin. Therefore, Chavez knew from personal experience the lives of migrants, their hard work, and their lack of social support. The main achievements of Cesar Chavez were that in 1965, Chavez organized and led a five-year strike of California grape pickers and a nationwide boycott of California grapes (American Labor Leader 3). These actions enabled the NFWA to garner widespread support from across the United States.
Nevertheless, Cesar Chavez focused on the main problematic sectors of agricultural production, such as lettuce growers. After the man researched the issue and raised the issue of workers’ rights publicly, agribusiness owners agreed to sign labor contracts with workers (Cesar Chavez 5). Thus, Cesar Chavez’s activities as a co-founder of the NFWA and the UFW were important in defending intersectionality and workers’ rights.
However, Cesar Chavez did not stop there and continued to develop the UFW together with Dolores Huerta. As a result, in 1975, California passed the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which granted all farmworkers the right to organize into labor unions and negotiate for increased wages and better workplace benefits (American Labor Leader 5). Furthermore, even in the mid-1980s, Chavez continued to work, despite agricultural workers already receiving support and assistance from the state and employers (American Labor Leader 7).
Chavez then focused the UFW’s attention on a public awareness campaign to address the dangers of pesticides to the farmworkers and their families. In 1988, at the age of 61, Cesar Chavez went on his third hunger strike, which lasted 36 days (Cesar Chavez 8). Thus, Cesar Chavez was one of the foremost leaders of the UFW and remained active until his death.
Dolores Huerta also co-founded the UFW and was one of the most influential women leaders who fought for civil rights during the Chicano movement. The woman also came from a farming family. She watched their parents work hard, which is why Dolores Huerta developed a compassionate attitude toward workers who struggled and did not receive sufficient rewards for their labor (Dolores Huerta 1).
Furthermore, Dolores Huerta faced discrimination due to the prejudice of her school teacher against Latin Americans. Dolores Huerta began social activism when Dolores saw hungry children of agricultural workers while working at a high school and wanted to support them. Initially, Dolores Huerta co-founded the Stockton chapter of the Community Services Organization (CSO), which conducted voter registration and fought for economic improvements for Latinos (Dolores Huerta 2).
Later, the woman met the activist Cesar Chavez, and in 1962, they co-founded the NFWA and then the UFW. In general, Huerta was the vice president of the UFW until 1999 (Dolores Huerta 4). Dolores Huerta’s contributions to the organization’s development were significant. Thus, while working in the UFW, Huerta encouraged workers to speak out against poor working conditions and low wages, advocated for the modernization of farmworkers’ labor contracts, and proposed measures to eliminate hazardous working conditions. At the same time, the woman’s activities were also aimed at helping disabled former farmworkers who had become disabled due to illness (Dolores Huerta 5).
Dolores Huerta, together with Cesar Chavez, focused all their efforts on organizing large-scale national strikes, which allowed them to achieve a successful union contract by 1970. Additionally, during the 1980s, she worked as a legislative representative for employees, serving as a lobbyist. Moreover, in the early 2000s, Dolores Huerta began focusing on the rights of Latinos (Dolores Huerta 9). Huerta encouraged government agencies to pay attention to women’s issues and the low involvement of Latin Americans in political office.
Conclusion
Thus, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta created and coordinated the activities of the United Farm Workers Union. They advocated for the observance of the fundamental rights of agricultural workers, including fair wages, adequate healthcare, and a safe working environment. For this purpose, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta successfully organized boycotts and strikes, achieving the conclusion of labor contracts and compliance with minimum labor standards. Furthermore, after the agricultural workers received support from the state, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta continued the UFW’s activities. Until the end of their lives, they continued to face new challenges in the agricultural sector and worked to address them.
Works Cited
“American Labour Leader.” Britannica. 2023. Web.
“Cesar Chavez.” A&E Television Networks. 2022. Web.
“Dolores Huerta.” National Women’s History Museum. Web.
“1962: United Farm Workers Union.” Library of Congress Legal. Web.