Forty-five years ago on this date, August 24, 1970, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) leader César Chávez called for a consumer boycott of lettuce to support the strike against lettuce growers who would not negotiate contracts with farm workers for decent wages and working conditions. UFWOC was the predecessor organization to the United Farm Workers (UFW). The Delano grape boycott had recently shown some success, and the union was eager to advance workers’ claims into new fields.

To keep the UFW out of California lettuce and vegetable fields, most Salinas Valley growers signed sweetheart contracts with the Teamsters Union. Some 10,000 Central Coast farm workers respond by walking out on strike. The UFW used the boycott to convince some large vegetable companies to abandon their Teamster agreements and sign UFW contracts.

The so-called Salad Bowl strike was a series of strikes, mass pickets, boycotts and secondary boycotts that led to the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history. Shipments of fresh lettuce nationwide virtually ceased, and the price of lettuce doubled almost overnight. Lettuce growers lost $500,000 a day. A state district court enjoined Chávez personally and the UFW as an organization from engaging in picketing, but both Chávez and the union refused to obey the court’s orders.

Violence against UFW workers became increasingly widespread in the fields. On November 4, 1970 a UFW regional office was bombed.

Chávez spent from Dec. 10 to 23 in jail in Salinas, Calif., for refusing to obey the court order. Former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete Rafer Johnson, Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, visited him in jail.

On March 26, 1971, the Teamsters and UFW signed a new jurisdictional agreement reaffirming the UFW’s right to organize field workers, although Teamsters did continue to organize in some places, with frequent violent attacks on UFW members. The Teamsters finally left the field in 1973.

After a dramatic 110-mile march from San Francisco, which gathered more than 15,000 people by the time they reached the E & J Gallo Winery in Modesto on March 1, 1975, UFW’s persistent action led directly to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which went into effect on August 28th. The UFW organized thousands of agricultural laborers into unions, in many cases winning recognition and negotiated contracts.

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  • Fartbutt420 [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Haven't seen a whole lot here about what's going down in Ontario - haven't really been online this week so apologies if I'm repeating - but things are starting to kick off here. Basically CUPE, the union for education workers (not teachers, but custodians, education assistants, IT, admin, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries) has been negotiating their new contracts with the province. CUPE was asking for an 11% raise (after a decade of 0%-2% raises) and the province's wouldn't push higher than 2.5% for the lowest earners and 1.5% for the rest. Bear in mind these are among the lowest paid public sector employees, with an average wage of $39k, and are predominantly women and people of colour. Half have second jobs, many need food banks. And inflation is at 7%>

    Well, instead of negotiating or going to mediation, Premier Doug Ford (brother of deceased crack mayor Rob) and private-school failson education minister Stephen Lecce pushed through legislation to fix the 2.5%/1.5% contract. Crucially, in order to eliminate the possibility of strike action, they've invoked the little-used "notwithstanding clause" of the Canadian constitution to eliminate the ability for the legislation to be challenged in courts - basically, a built-in mechanism in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows government to enact legislation that would otherwise illegally infringe on constitutional rights, with no recourse to challenge it. Fuck you, take the paycut, and you can't do any of the strike action you're entitled to. The intent is to crush a union of the most vulnerable workers ahead of negotiations of some of the larger unions (eg teachers). They had this legislation locked and loaded since the summer election - this is entirely planned by the provincial Tories.

    So now that the provincial government has made labour action effectively illegal, as of today the 55,000 member-strong CUPE is on a wildcat strike. It's hard to over emphasize how dangerous this has all been for labour rights in this country - if the use of notwithstanding clause is allowed to atand without pushback, better believe that Tory govs across the country will feel emboldened to start utilizing it with impunity to crush any opposition. For now, some unions have joined in solidarity, others are being wishy washy. The federal Liberals are being non-committal, while the succdem NDP that prop up the government are looking at their toes. The union for the provincial GO bus drivers just voted for strike action and will be joining the picket on Monday; there are whispers of a general strike. Interesting times are ahead.