Delano Grape Strike

The beginning to a union that would be the only successful union ever established to defend the rights of those who grow and harvest crops began September 8, 1964 with the grape strike in Delano, California. Years before the creation of the UFW, there were many attempts to organize. The Bracero Program ended in 1964, but a new program was created that still allowed the American government to import Mexican workers. These workers were being paid more than domestic workers. When domestic farm workers demand that their wages be increased, they were denied, and the workers struck. Because coachella grapes, grown in southernmost California, ripen first in the state, growers realized that they needed their workers to pick the grapes in time, to save their profits. After ten days the growers decided to pay everyone $1.25 per hour. However, no union contract was signed, and in September of 1965 the Delano Grape Strike began.

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Delano

"The strike began three years ahead of schedule. The fuse was lit in the Coachella Valley south of Delano, where in the spring of 1965, Filipino grape pickers, most of whom were members of the AFL-CIO's Agricultural Workers' Organizing Committee, balked at being paid less than the braceros who worked beside them in the fields. Under a US Department of Labor edict, the braceros were getting $1.40 an hour base pay, while domestic workers were receiving twenty to thirty cents an hour less, in spite of the Labor Department's stipulation that domestics were in no case to be paid less than the braceros. Joined by several hundred Mexican-American pickers, the Filipinos staged a walkout."[2]

Begun by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), led by Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), led by Cesar Chavez, soon joined the strike. Eventually, the two would merge to for the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (eventually becoming the United Farm Workers Union-UFW), AFL-CIO, and it received organizing funds as well as strike support from other unions consisting of food, cash, and office equipment. (This is one reason for its success in forming a union. They had the resourcees to continue.)

"At a meeting on September 16, packed with hundreds of workers, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Delano, the NFWA voted unanimously, to shouts of 'Viva la Huelga!', to strike too. Chavez was apprehensive. Asked later when he felt his organization-which had $100 in its bank account, would have been ready to go out on a big strike, he replied, 'About 1968.'"[3]

"We weren't ready for the grape strike, but we had to do it. And we didn't know what we were doing. All we knew was that there has to be a way to win." [4]

By September 20 more than thirty farms were struck. A nationwide boycott of nonunion grapes followed. Roving pickets were formed, and workers were increasingly joining the strike. Chavez encouraged the public to refuse buying grapes that did not have a union label, and workers were sent out to cities, churches, schools, and businesses speaking on behalf of the boycott. The boycott had the strength and potential to hurt the sale of other products produced by Delano growers as well. Eventually, millions of consumers were refusing to buy table grapes and rallying to La Causa, the farm workers' cause.

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In response to the boycott, striking workers were sprayed with agricultural poisons by Delano growers. Led by Chavez, on March 17, 1966, seventy strikers marched 340 miles in 25 days, picketing and rallying along the way. By the end of the pilgrimmage, Chavez was leading hundreds of people, and they cheered with thousands of people along the way. As the days passed, growers realized that they were not winning the battle, even after they offered to raise wages to $1.25. Workers refused to accept the concession, and growers realized that a union was the only answer, and in March of 1966 the two largest growers in Delano, Schenley and DiGiorgio, signed their first union contracts with UFW workers. However, this was not the end to the boycott. Cesar had won his first contract, but there were still many growers in California who had not recognized the UFW, (formerly the UFWOC). For the next four years, the union continued to nonviolently strike against the growers. By June of 1970 most of the table grape growers were organized and the UFW had 50,000 dues paying members.

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(Source: UFW's Official Site].)

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