About the UFW

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.

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. By September 20 more than thirty farms were struck. A nationwide boycott of nonunion grapes followed. The two organizations merged a year later to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO. By 1970 most of the table grape growers were organized and the UFW had 50,000 dues paying members.

The dominant force behind attempts to unionize much of the agricultural labor force concentrated in California and spinning off of smaller-scale efforts in Arizona, Texas, Florida, Washington, Ohio, and Michigan has been the UFW, headed since its inception in 1962 by Cesar Chavez until his death in April 1993. Though its strength has diminished since the early 1980s, the UFW continues to be the largest agrictultural labor union in California (Cooper).

Vision[[1]]

To provide farm workers and other working people with the inspiration and tools to share in society's bounty.

Core Values:

• Integrity

--Doing the right thing even when no one is looking.

• Si Se Puede! (Yes we can!) Attitude

--The embodiment of a personal and organizational spirit that promotes confidence, courage, and risk taking.

• Innovation

--The active pursuit of new ideas.

• Non-Violence

--Enagaging in disciplined action.

• Empowerment

--A fundamental belief in and respect for people.

"I had a dream that the only resons the employers were so powerful was not because they in fact had that much power, in terms of dealing with the lives of their workers at will, but what makes them truly powerful was that we were weak. And if we could somehow begin to develop some strength among ourselves, I felt that we could begin to equal that, balancing their power in agriculture." --Cesar Chavez[[2]]

"The whole idea of the union, it's not only the union, but it represents, together with you and me, all our brothers, Chicano and white and black and everything, represents an idea that poor people can get together and win." --Chavez[[3]]

Back to UFW Home