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On the struggle of California agricultural workers to gain union recognition through the United Farm Workers.
Public domain film from the Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
he United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers’ rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez. They became allied and transformed from workers’ rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the AFL-CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farmworkers Union…
Dolores Huerta grew up in Stockton, California, which was in the San Joaquin Valley, an area filled with farms. In the early 1950s, she completed a degree at Delta Community College, part of the University of the Pacific. She briefly worked as an elementary school teacher. Huerta saw that her students, many of them children of farm workers, were living in poverty without enough food to eat or other basic necessities. To help, she became one of the founders of the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO). The CSO worked to improve social and economic conditions for farm workers and to fight discrimination.
By 1959, César Chávez had already established professional relationships with local community organizations that aimed to empower the working class population by encouraging them to become more politically active. In 1952, Chávez met Fred Ross who was a community organizer working on behalf of the Community Service Organization. This was a group which was affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation which was headed by Saul Alinsky.
To further her cause, Huerta created the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA) in 1960…
In 1962, she co-founded a workers’ union with César Chávez, which was later known as the United Farm Workers (UFW). The two made a great team. Chávez was the dynamic leader and speaker and Huerta was a skilled organizer and tough negotiator. Huerta was instrumental in the union’s many successes, including the strikes against California grape growers in the 1960s and 1970s…
Although still in its infant stages, the organization lent its support to a strike by workers in the rose industry in 1965. This initial protest by the young organization resulted in a failed attempt to strike against the rose industry. That same year the farm workers who worked in the Delano fields of California wanted to strike against the growers in response to the grower’s refusal to raise wages from $1.20 to $1.40 an hour, and they sought out Chávez and the National Farm Workers Association for support. The Delano agricultural workers were majority Filipino workers who were affiliated with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee which was a charter of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. The unification of these two organizations, in an attempt to boycott table grapes which were grown in the Delano fields, resulted in the creation of the United Farm Workers of America…
