Remembering Chavez and the Delano Grape Strike

There are moments in any movement that people can point to as ones that changed history. And 50 years ago today, labor giant Cesar Chavez was the catalyst for one of those.

At a church in the Central Valley of California on Sept. 16, 1965, the father of U.S. farmworker organizing cajoled Latino pickers to join Filipino grape workers and strike against area table and wine grape growers to protest years of low pay and poor conditions. It was the beginning of the five-year Delano Grape Strike and Boycott, which is discussed in the video above.

The effort went far beyond the fields of the Golden State, as United Farmer Workers  (UFW) -- a member of the Change to Win labor coalition like the Teamsters -- detailed:

Hundreds of grape strikers traveled across the U.S. and Canada, telling their stories and organizing mass support for the grape boycott. The strikers were joined by thousands of supporters who helped tirelessly organize the boycott.

... The boycott connected middle-class families in big cities with poor farm worker families in the California vineyards. Millions stopped eating grapes. At dinner tables across the country, parents gave children a simple, powerful lesson in social justice. 

By 1970, the grape boycott was a complete success. Table grape growers at long last signed their first union contracts, granting workers better pay, benefits, and protections.

There were other battles along the way. But Chavez was a great union and civil rights leader whose influence and importance has lingered well beyond his death in 1993.

Today, the union movement again sits at the precipice of great change. Growing income inequality has left many workers struggling with low wages -- not enough to support their families. The Teamsters, UFW and all unions have a role to play to ensure that everyday Americans receive a fair wage.

Union Strong, America Stronger!

Today's Teamster News 04.01.15

Teamsters
Teamsters Applaud Veto Of Senate Joint Resolution To Overturn NLRB Election Modernization Rule  teamster.org   ...The Teamsters Union today applauded President Obama’s decision to veto a destructive resolution backed by Republicans in Congress that would overturn modest reforms issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to help streamline and modernize representation case procedures...
Teamsters Local 853 Begins Negotiations for Tech Company Shuttle Drivers  teamster.org   ...Negotiations on a union contract for Silicon Valley tech company drivers will begin today. Representatives for the drivers’ union, Teamsters Local 853 in San Leandro, Calif., will meet with Transdev, which operates as Compass Transportation, and employs drivers at Apple, eBay, Yahoo, Zynga, Genentech, Amtrak and Evernote...
St. Vincent technicians seek to align with union  Worcester Business Journal   ...The employees have applied to the Boston bureau of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to join Teamsters Local 170 in Worcester...
Open & Fair Skies Report: Reconsidering the U.S.-UAE Aviation Relationship  teamster.org   ... the Gulf carriers receive ‘stunning and unprecedented’ financial support from the UAE that dramatically upends the aviation marketplace.  As more experts study this case and the evidence, we are encouraged that they are supporting our request for the U.S. government to open consultations with the UAE under the Open Skies agreement...
Local 399 Casting Director Profiled In New Yorker  teamster.org   ...Allison Jones, the casting director, was reading the scene with actors trying out for the Stewart role, who faced a decision: audition with a real banana, or just pretend to eat one? Jones works out of a bungalow in the quaint Larchmont neighborhood of Los Angeles. The rooms of the house are airy and filled with mementos of her thirty-year-long career in Hollywood: bobble-heads of characters from “The Office,” which Jones cast; a bulletin board collaged with head shots...
Travel Industry Leaders Urge Maryland Governor To Reject Burdensome Tax On Travel  eTurboNews   ...Concerned industry participants comprise major corporations, travel management companies, travel agencies, travel industry advocates, travel associations, travel consortia and organized labor. Signatories to the letter include ...the Teamsters National Airline Division...
Cesar Chavez Day March Shines Light On LA Produce Workers' Rights  KABC   ...Teamsters marching Tuesday are in support of unionization for workers at the L.A. Produce Market. They say there are 1,000-2,000 workers at the market who lack union representation...
Trade
Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty Will Help Neither Workers Nor Consumers (opinion)  Washington Post   ...now a significant portion of our trade is intra-corporate trade, an exchange between one branch of a multinational and another. Multinationals have different interests than national companies. They profit even if U.S. workers suffer...
State Battles
Most Americans Want Their State To Make Voter Registration Easier  Huffington Post   ...A 54 percent majority of Americans say they'd favor an automatic registration law in their state, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds, while 55 percent favor allowing eligible citizens to register on the day of an election...
Colorado House Gives Initial OK To Pair Of Minimum-Wage Bills  Denver Post   .. the Colorado House gave initial approval Monday to two bills that could grant pay hikes to the state's lowest-wage earners. One bill would allow elected officials in cities and counties to set minimum wages apart from the state standard; the other would create a 2016 ballot measure to allow voters to decide on a formula to raise it from the current $8.23 an hour to $12.50 by 2020...
War on Workers
Cheap oil prices chop jobs by thousands  USA Today   ...Planned oil industry layoffs in the U.S. are approaching 100,000 in the past four months with more likely to come...
The Shrinking Middle Class, Mapped State by State  The Pew Charitable Trusts   .... A new Stateline analysis shows that in all 50 states, the percentage of “middle-class” households—those making between 67 percent and 200 percent of the state’s median income—shrunk between 2000 and 2013...
Even After Walmart Got Busted in Court for Stealing Workers' Wages, It's Trying Not to Pay Up  Alternet   ...Walmart employees have over $187 [million] in damages they can collect from a successful wage theft lawsuit, but the company is arguing that each victim should get their own lawyer...
‘Wealth creators’ are robbing our most productive people  Guardian   ...A report by the Resolution Foundation reveals that two-thirds of frontline care workers receive less than the living wage. Ten percent, like Carole, are illegally paid less than the minimum wage. This abuse is not confined to the UK: in the US, 27% of care workers who make home visits are paid less than the legal minimum...
Income Inequality: It’s Also Bad For Your Health  New York Times   ...the effect of inequality was statistically significant, equivalent to a difference of about 11 days of life between high- and low-inequality places. The differences were small, but for every increment that a community became more unequal, the proportion of residents dying before the age of 75 went up...
The Rise Of The Working Poor And The Non-Working Rich (opinion)  Huffington Post   ...While poverty declined in the early years of welfare reform when the economy boomed and jobs were plentiful, it began growing in 2000. By 2012 it exceeded its level in 1996, when welfare ended....
Losing A Job Is Always Terrible. For Workers Over 50, It’s Worse  Washington Post   ...although older people often found the working conditions at their new jobs were better than their old one, nearly half found that the new job paid less....
Contractor Killed In Industrial Accident At Marcus Hook Refinery  Philadelphia Inquirer   ...A contractor working at the former Sunoco refinery in Delaware County was killed Monday afternoon in an industrial accident, officials said...
Miscellaneous
Wintry Hit Seen In Soft Spending  Wall Street Journal   ...Consumer spending barely rose in February, increasing a seasonally adjusted 0.1% from the prior month after two consecutive declines, the Commerce Department said Monday. Spending on goods and services, when adjusted for inflation, actually declined slightly for the first time in 10 months...

Cesar Chavez' nephew encourages Taylor Farms' workers to keep up the fight

Taylor Farms workers who tried to join the Teamsters despite a vicious anti-union campaign took heart last night from the nephew of the man who organized migrant workers across the country: Cesar Chavez.

Gun-toting goons hired by Taylor Farms so disrupted the Teamster representation election recently that the NLRB impounded the ballots. The company, located in California's Central Valley, is the largest supplier of fresh-cut produce in the United States. About 900 workers, mostly Latino, were involved in the organizing campaign.

About 100 Taylor Farm workers who went to see the new Cesar Chavez film last night were greeted by Federico Chavez, the great labor leader's nephew. Jason Campbell at the Manteco Bulletin interviewed Jose Gonzalez, one of the worker's who wants to join the Teamsters. 

...knowing that somebody that was so instrumental to the struggle that still rages today was standing in their corner, Gonzalez said, was beyond important – it showed the rights of workers are still important today.  

“All that we want to be able to do is organize and Taylor Farms is making that as difficult as possible,” he said. “We just there to be an opportunity for advancement – an opportunity for people who work hard to be able to support their families. That’s what this is all about – this is a company that could make a low-class family middle-class and not even think twice about it – give us a little bit of stability.”

Federico Chavez greeted the Taylor Farms workers.

Fred Chavez said that it’s not only the right of the workers to assemble and organize, but it’s the only way that they’ll ever advance in a society with a middle class that is exceedingly shrinking. 

“The only way that the individuals in our society are going to get a fair shake is if they organize,” Chavez said. “The individuals who make the decisions have their own agendas, and organizing helps overcome that. 

“It used to be that credit cards and buying a home were the biggest sources of debt that you’d incur, but now our young people are starting off with mountains of it right out of school. They can’t overcome that. 

“By organizing these workers can move towards a living wage and a life that’s better than what is being represented today.”

Teamster election disrupted by spitting, swearing, gun-wielding goons

Gun-toting goons hired by Taylor Farms so disrupted a Teamster representation election last week that the NLRB impounded the ballots.

Taylor Farms, the largest supplier of fresh-cut produce in the country, hired 12 union busters to run a vicious campaign against the 900, primarily Latino workers.

During the two-day election, according to the Teamsters,

...the company deployed a goon squad of supervisors and lead workers to intimidate workers and restrict their movement during the voting period. The company stationed armed guards in full view of workers who were voting and called police who parked their squad cars in front of the facilities, adding to the climate of fear during the election. 

Meanwhile, company goons spat on union t-shirts, yelling obscenities and threats at union organizers and workers. One report claims a plant manager called terminated pro-union workers telling them they would be rehired if they came in and voted no against the union. 

Other reports suggest that workers were sent to vote twice under different names or to vote for workers on vacation. 

This extreme hostility by the company and its likely violations of the law forced the NLRB to intervene as final ballots were being cast on Friday evening. The Board removed ballots to a more secure location at its offices in Oakland while it investigates the company’s unlawful conduct.

The Teamsters  filed claims covering hundreds of Unfair Labor Practice violations by the company, including the retaliatory firing of union supporters, threatening workers around immigration status and telling immigrant workers they could not vote.

Ironically, the attack on Taylor Farms workers comes almost exactly on Cesar Chavez's birthday. Caitlin Vega notes in the Labor's Edge blog:

The struggle of the workers at Taylor Farms is exactly la causa that Cesar Chavez devoted himself to. That every worker has the right not just to dream of a better life but to stand up for one. That those who work with their hands to get food to our tables deserve also to feed their children. They are fighting not for themselves, but for their co-workers, for their families, and for a better future. They too are leaving a legacy that will inspire generations to come.

It is discouraging to see that the labor contractor system that Cesar Chavez fought to abolish has instead multiplied. But Cesar would not lose hope, even in the face of employer intimidation of workers and interference in their right to a free and fair election. As he said in a speech in 1984, “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”

Si se puede!