F A R M
March 2016
L A B O R
I N F O R M A T I O N
B U L L E T I N
Voice of the Fields California FREE
Volume 26, Number 3
Cesar Chavez: A Champion for Farmworkers
C
esar Chavez, a first generation American, dedicated his life to improving the treatment, pay, and working conditions for U.S. farmworkers. In honor of Cesar Chavez, the United States annually celebrates his birth and legacy on March 31st. Chavez was born on March 31, 1927 just outside of Yuma, Arizona. In 1938 he and his family moved to California where they worked in the fields as migrant farmworkers. As he traveled with his family through California laboring in the fields, Chavez experienced the routine hardships and mistreatment U.S. farmworkers faced. His time in the fields ignited his drive to improve the quality of life for agricultural workers. Once of eligible age, Chavez left agricultural work and volunteered in the U.S. Navy for two years. After returning home he settled down and began addressing issues within the community, which would pave the way for a discussion around farmworkers’ rights. In 1962, Chavez started the National Farm Worker Association, which later became a union and was later renamed the United Farm Workers (UFW). Chavez and Dolores Huerta, another significant champion for farmworkers’ rights, went from town to town rallying support behind the National Farm Worker Association. It wasn’t until 1965
when the Farm Workers Association voted to join other associations at a strike in Delano’s grape fields that they earned national notoriety. Huerta and Chavez soon led marches that pushed California’s state government to pass laws that permitted farmworkers to organize into a union and collectively bargain. Chavez sought recognition of the importance and dignity of all farm workers. He succeeded at obtaining his goals through peaceful boycotts, pickets, and strikes. In order to further his mission, Chavez trained his union workers and sent them to cities to share the importance and need for farmworker protections. He led as a spokesperson not only through words but also through action. In 1968, Chavez went on a water only fast for 25 days, which he later repeated again in 1972 for 4 days, and in 1988 for 36 days. Chavez was able to overcome a paramount of obstacles and gain various rights for farmworkers throughout the United States prior to his death in
1993. Under Cesar Chavez, the wins were numerous: the United Farmworkers of America was able to carry out the first collective bargaining agreements between farmworkers and growers, set work standards and protections, establish union medical benefits, develop the first and only functioning pension plan for retired farm workers (the Juan de la Cruz Pension Plan), ban the use of the shorthandled hoe, extend farmworkers state coverage under unemployment insurance, and gain other essential rights and protections.